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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855802">Loki: Playing With Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJD52376/pseuds/AJD52376'>AJD52376</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki Trilogy [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Loki - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Marvel Universe, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:47:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>66,743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJD52376/pseuds/AJD52376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After acquiring two relics of Asgard, Loki's past returns to haunt him. Sequel to Loki: For All That is Lost and Loki: Blood Royal</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki Trilogy [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817131</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Loki</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sequel to Loki: For All That is Lost and Loki: Blood Royal</p><p>The towering doors of the throne room of Heven's palace opened before the man with the heavy brow and the thick, snow white hair that almost gave him the appearance of being a native resident of the planet on which he now sought to do business. The female with the lemon yellow skin that accompanied him began the trek, her master following a few measured steps behind, towards the throne on which Loki sat. The King of Heven donned a black tunic with green embellishments, an imposing and striking crown upon his head, the golden horns reflecting the light that shown down from the painted sky on the ceiling above like sunlight.</p><p>Loki's overbearing appearance and demeanor were intentional as he knew well the reputation of the man who came before him. He had very few occasions these days, and hadn't for the sum of a handful of years now, to appear so intimidating. He feared at times he was 'getting soft' as he grew more comfortable in and accustomed to his position as the King of such a peaceful and joyous realm and his role as a loving husband and father. Even his dealings with Jotunheim had lost the hard edge that once they had, since placing Skrymir on the throne as his regent and representative. Of course, he still found plenty of opportunities to foment mischief, it was in his nature after all, but it was now in the form of the benevolent fun it had once taken long ago as a young boy on Asgard before Sigyn's exile had hardened his heart.</p><p>"Your majesty, I present to you Taneleer Tivan." the meek female retainer of the man she had just introduced said as she bowed low before Loki and stepped aside. Tivan strode up to stand in the place she had just vacated and also bowed low with a series of flamboyant hand gestures.</p><p>"King Loki of Heven and the Jotunheim, Prince of Asgard, son of the great Odin, I am honored beyond measure to be in your presence." Tivan said in an overly worshipful, almost grovelling tone.</p><p>"As you should be." Loki said to him.</p><p>"Your great deeds are known throughout the universe, your name now synonymous with that of 'savior.' It is said even death falls trembling to its knees begging mercy before you." Tivan said in his drowsy drawl.</p><p>"I'm not sure I would go so far. Death and I have an...understanding." Loki responded. He had expected from Tivan's reputation for his bread to be heavily buttered by the man, but had not expected it to be slathered on quite so thick. "Your reputation precedes you as well. It is said that most anything one may seek out can be procured by the Collector. There are two things I have been informed you possess which interest me today." Loki said.</p><p>"They only recently came into my possession." Tivan responded. Tivan reached into his voluminous cloak with both hands, then withdrew them, holding them out in front of him, each now wielding an object that Loki's eyes fell upon. In one hand, a clear box, a small flame flickering within it and in the other, what appeared to be a large stone that stretched from the tips of Tivan's fingers to the heel of his hand with smooth dark green and black crystals mixed within the grey rock. "The sole remnant of Asgard to have been thus far discovered...and this, a flame that burns even in the dark void of space, the only relic known to have survived from Odin's vault." Loki stared at the objects, enamored, as he rose from the throne.</p><p>"The price is as we agreed?" Loki asked.</p><p>"It is...unless you would be interested in a trade. Perhaps something from among the treasures within your own vault?" Tivan answered.</p><p>"I'm afraid that will not be possible. I am willing to add a generous gratuity to the price for delivering them to me. If any other such relics were to come into your possession in the future..."</p><p>"Of course." Tivan responded, bowing his head.</p><p>The sentry at his post guarding the doors of the vault of Heven opened them wide for Loki as he approached holding the two objects he had just procured, one in each hand. Loki entered the vault, the doors shutting behind him and made his way to the back of the vault where a golden cauldron upon a pedestal sat. He had commissioned it recently to hold that which he held now in his right hand. Spread across the bottom of the cauldron was a bed of small, black coal like stones. Sitting the stone in his left hand down at his feet, he lifted the clear covering from over the flame and transferred it to his hand and looked upon it as it burned in his palm, then lowered his hand into the cauldron. The flame spread and rose across the black stones. Loki stared into the burning cauldron for a few moments, mesmerized, as he replayed the last moments his eyes had fallen upon those same flames on Asgard, as he placed Surtur's crown within them and recited the words that were the death knell of his home world. He picked up the stone at his feet once again and turned from the cauldron.</p><p>Taneleer Tivan entered his ship, his female retainer following dutifully behind him. Once inside, she retracted the gangway and closed the hatch as Tivan, his shoulders drooping in exhaustion, dark patches under his eyes, removed his cloak and tossed it aside.</p><p>"You will be able to sleep now?" the woman asked.</p><p>"I certainly hope so." Tivan answered. "It is a shame that sleep is one of the few things that money in any of its forms cannot buy."</p><p>"Go and rest.  I will return us home."</p><p>"Thank you, my dear." Tivan responded, turning and disappearing through a hatch.</p><p>Loki lay in bed alone, finally having drifted off into slumber after lying sleepless for a time, unused to sleeping alone after so long and without Sigyn's peaceful and calming influence to assist him in the endeavor. Suddenly he bolted upright with a shout of fright, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his forehead. Disoriented, he glanced around the dark room, wide eyed, unable to remember as the dream quickly slipped from his memory banks what it was that now left him feeling terrified, his heart racing. He had not had a nightmare for as long as he could remember. Unlike Sigyn as a child, he had rarely been plagued with them throughout his long life. He had almost always envisioned himself as the hero in his dreams, easily vanquishing the foe, whatever or whoever it may be, however powerful and menacing. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, struggling to recall that which had disturbed his rest, he heard it, a muffled sound coming from the great room of the royal chambers. Puzzled, he tossed aside the blankets.</p><p>Entering the great room, Loki wearing a long black and gold trimmed robe, heard the rhythmic music emanating from the speakers of the record player on the table where the stone, the only remnant of Asgard thus far discovered (though he was sure there had to be others) lay where he had placed it. ( watch?v=KX412tBpxMg)</p><p>...Getting down, so deep I could have drowned</p><p>Now, I can't get back the way I used to be</p><p>But I kept on looking for a sign</p><p>In the middle of the night</p><p>But I couldn't see the light</p><p>No, I couldn't see the light</p><p>I kept on looking for a way</p><p>To take me through the night</p><p>I couldn't get it right</p><p>I couldn't get it right</p><p>New York City took me with the tide</p><p>And I nearly died from hospitality</p><p>Left me stranded, took away my pride</p><p>Just another no account fatality</p><p>But I kept on looking for a sign</p><p>In the middle of the night</p><p>But I couldn't see the light</p><p>No, I couldn't see the light...</p><p>Loki raised the lights and crossed the room to the table, scouring the room with his eyes for any sign of a presence. It was unlikely, however, as a sentry was continually stationed outside the doors. The only way anyone could have entered without being noticed would be with an angelic transport cylinder. He knew of only two people other than himself and Sigyn who possessed them. The head of security and Mariel, Sigyn's highest ranking lady of the court and attendant. Loki removed the needle from the record and turned off the record player.</p><p>"Is anyone here? Show yourself!" Perhaps Sigyn had returned to play her own prank in retaliation for the one he had successfully pulled off but days before, he thought. It struck him as highly unlikely, however, for a couple of very important reasons. "Mariel?" he called out. Maybe Sigyn had put her up to it in her stead. Again, Loki received no answer. It was the only explanation he could think of at the moment, though it also didn't set right with him somehow. Something felt off, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was. Even the air in the room felt heavy, though he convinced himself that sensation was merely a result of the unnerving circumstances.</p><p>Loki placed his hand on top of the cold, hard stone. He ran the tips of his fingers over a few of the smooth, green and black crystalline flecks that glittered on its surface. He could feel a strange sort of energy flowing from it, though nothing that reminded him of any of the other powerful relics he had experience with. It didn't feel as if it was anything that could be harnessed or used for any specific purpose like that of the mind stone or the Tesseract, just the residual energy that had once flowed throughout Asgard, that any living being on any planet imbued with life would sense from the ground beneath their feet. It was not for any power that he believed it might have had that he had jumped at the chance to possess it.</p><p>Perhaps, though, the energy he did sense from it that it possessed had been enough to wreak havoc with the jury rigged Midgardian electronic that sat nearby. Maybe Sigyn had left the needle on the record being in a hurry and having been quite harried, as he recalled, before her departure. It had been more than a month, almost two, since she had last visited her island, her refuge, the place where she went to "recharge her batteries" as she put it and she had obviously been in need of it. It was only his scheduled audience with Tivan that he had made before her plans were brought to his attention that had precluded him from joining her for the moment. It was rare for Loki not to join her and assist with the arrangements, thus why she had been "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" as she had described herself, another Midgardian phrase she often employed that Loki found endearingly peculiar. Midgardians seemed to have a particular affinity for poultry for some reason Loki could never comprehend. All varieties seemed to be quite dull witted even for animals in Loki's view, but then, he found many Midgardians to be so as well.</p><p>Removing his hand from the stone, he glanced once more around the room, convincing himself upon finding it as devoid of anyone other than himself as it had been when he had first done so, that his last explanation for the strange event he had just encountered was most likely correct. Turning from the table and crossing the room, he returned to the bedchamber, though he couldn't shake off the unsettled sensation that it, along with the nightmare that had awakened him, the details of which he couldn't recall in the slightest, had left him with.</p><p>Sigyn lay sleeping in the back bedroom of the house on her island, the window cracked open, the salty sea breeze flowing into the room billowing the curtain slightly. She had long ago replaced the old, yellowed lace one with a newer version. The record she had put on the stereo had long since reached its end. Beside her, in the spot where Loki usually slept, Leiffrid dozed. To share a bed with his mother was a rare treat for the dark haired boy who lay clutching the stuffed wolf that his uncle, Thor, had given to him while still an infant. It had obviously seen better days since it had been bestowed upon him over three years prior, its seams restitched in various places, its faux fur matted down in others, yet he refused to relinquish it even after being offered his choice of newer companions.</p><p>Two strong arms slipped themselves under the slumbering child, lifting him from the bed and carrying him into the other bedroom, now decorated to reflect the interests of a child of Leiffrid's age. Loki knew it would in the future have to be redecorated to also include the interests of she who now made use of the cradle in which Leiffrid had once slept, or perhaps it would be necessary to once again call upon Clint Barton's skills to build another room, or while he was at it, two, perhaps even three. It wasn't as if there was no room to expand. They had an entire island after all. Placing Leiffrid gently down into the small bed, Loki covered him and returned to the bedroom where the boy's mother peacefully slept. Loki peered into the cradle on the far side of the room before changing and sliding into the bed beside Sigyn, wrapping an arm around her. Awakened by the unexpected sensation, Sigyn rolled over to face Loki.</p><p>"I didn't think you were coming until tomorrow morning." Sigyn said quietly.</p><p>"It is tomorrow morning...there. The sun was just rising as I left. I thought I'd join you a bit early." Loki said drowsily.</p><p>"How did your meeting go?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"The Eternal Flame now rests in the vault." Loki replied.</p><p>"That's a relief. When you first told me about it...if it had fallen into the wrong hands...things have been going so well...I think I worry more when they do."</p><p>"There's nothing to fear. It is now secure from those who would wish to use it for any nefarious purpose." Loki said. Sigyn, even in the darkness, could see his fatigue reflected in his face.</p><p>"You haven't slept, have you?" she asked.</p><p>"For a short while. My rest was disturbed."</p><p>"Disturbed by what? The two most likely to do so are here." Sigyn said with a smile.</p><p>"I had a nightmare." Loki replied.</p><p>"You had a nightmare...you?" Sigyn said, puzzled.</p><p>"Strange, I know. I don't remember at all what it was about."</p><p>"It's been awhile since you've slept alone and with all of us gone...I'm sure that's all it was." Sigyn said.</p><p>"You're likely right. By the way, you didn't happen to put Mariel up to any mischief did you?" Loki asked.</p><p>"No. Why would I?" Sigyn questioned.</p><p>"I thought perhaps you had planned a retaliatory operation after my last bit of fun."</p><p>"You mean when you nearly caused me to become the first Queen of Heven to shit herself while sitting on the throne?" Sigyn asked. Loki couldn't help but chuckle, grinning at her reply. "No...not yet...but I will...and when you least expect it. Why?"</p><p>"I'm sure it's nothing...when I awoke from the nightmare I found-" Loki began before finding himself interrupted by the sounds of a hungry infant's fussing from the cradle across the room. Sigyn threw the covers back. "I've got her." Loki said, rising from the bed. Crossing the room he reached into the cradle, lifting the infant within it. "Shhh...it's alright, Frigga. Did you miss me? Of course you did. How could you not?" Loki returned to the bed, transferring the baby into Sigyn's arms before lying down and pulling the blankets over himself.</p><p>"Now what were you saying-?" Sigyn began to ask as she turned her head to find Loki asleep.</p><p>Sigyn looked at the stone that sat on the table in the great room of the royal chambers as Loki stood at her side. She ran her fingers over it much the same way Loki had previously.</p><p>"To think this is all that's left..." she said sadly. "Maybe we should give it to New Asgard. That would make more sense than keeping it here."</p><p>"Perhaps." Loki replied.</p><p>"I wish I'd had the chance to see it just one more time." Sigyn said wistfully. Leiffrid, who had been sitting on the floor playing with a set of interconnecting blocks, his wolf sitting beside him, looked over and stood, picking up the stuffed animal and walked over to stand beside Sigyn, grasping the edge of the table and standing on his tip toes to get a better look at the stone that rested upon it.</p><p>"What is it?" Leiffrid asked.</p><p>"It's a piece of Asgard, the place where your father and I lived a long time ago." Sigyn told him.</p><p>"Can I touch it?" Leiffrid asked.</p><p>"Of course." Loki replied, lifting Leiffrid up to sit on the table. He reached out, placing his hand on the stone. A strange expression crossed his face.</p><p>"Why did you blow it up?" Leiffrid asked, looking to Loki, troubled.</p><p>"That's not quite the way of it..." Loki replied, surprised at Leiffrid's question. He turned to Sigyn, "Did you tell him...?"</p><p>"No. We'd agreed to wait until he was a little older."</p><p>"Leiffrid, who told you this?" Loki asked.</p><p>"The ant in the rock." Leiffrid answered.</p><p>Elpida, the adopted mother of Zosime, opened the door to her quarters, the baby Frigga in her arms, at the sound of the chime to see Sigyn standing in the corridor outside.</p><p>"Sigyn...come in." Elpida said. Sigyn noticed the troubled look on Elpida's face.</p><p>"Is something wrong?" Sigyn asked as Elpida transferred Frigga into her arms.</p><p>"I'm not sure. It's probably nothing. Everything's fine now. I checked on them just a few minutes ago, they're sleeping." Elpida said, obviously reticent to divulge what had occurred.</p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"Leiffrid...I'm not sure why...he didn't seem to know himself..." said Elpida, "Zosime...he hit her." Elpida told Sigyn.</p><p>"Leiffrid? I'm so sorry. Is she alright?"</p><p>"She's fine, really. I suppose it was a typical children's squabble. Everything's alright now. They returned to their play after." Elpida said as she led Sigyn to the door of another room within her quarters, opening it. On the floor, toys scattered about them, lay Leiffrid and Zosime lying on their sides facing each other, each with an arm stretched out over the other, Leiffrid clutching his wolf in his other arm.</p><p>"Whatever was the trouble, it seems it's water under the bridge now, but I'll most certainly have a talk with him. It's not like him at all. I always hate waking them." Sigyn said. "They remind me so much of Loki and I."</p><p>Elpida approached the two children, gently moving Zosime's arm from it's place over Leiffrid and rousing him.</p><p>"Leiffrid...Leiffie...your mother's here to take you home now." Elpida told the boy. Leiffrid, sat up, drowsily rising to his feet. Sigyn put a hand out and he stumbled a bit towards her, taking it, his wolf in his other hand.</p><p>"Thank you, Elpida." Sigyn said.</p><p>"I will see you tomorrow, Leiffrid." Elpida said.</p><p>As Sigyn walked down the corridor, Leiffrid's hand in hers, she looked over at the boy who walked beside her.</p><p>"Leiffrid...Elpida said that you hit Zosime today. Why did you do that?"</p><p>"The ant in the rock told me to. She said that if someone doesn't do what I want, that I should make them. She said someday I could be an ezzer...exer...extra-tooth-ener." Leiffrid said, struggling with the word. Sigyn looked over at Leiffrid, troubled by his words.</p><p>"Leiffie...sweetheart...you know it's not right to hurt anyone. There's no ant in the stone. It's just a rock. Nothing could live in it. Besides, ants don't talk. I know it's fun to pretend, your father and I used to all the time when we were little just like you-"</p><p>"I'm not pretending!" Leiffrid exclaimed, defensively.</p><p>"We'll talk about it later when your father returns home." Sigyn said.</p><p>"Will father destroy Heven too?" Leiffrid asked.</p><p>"No, of course not! This is our home." Sigyn told him.</p><p>"But Asgard was his home, too. You told me so." Leiffrid responded. Sigyn stopped, kneeling down before Leiffrid, holding Frigga in one arm, placing the other reassuringly on Leiffrid's shoulder.</p><p>"Your father didn't want to destroy Asgard, he had to. There was a bad lady there and it was the only way to defeat her, to save the people there. She wanted to kill everyone, not just on Asgard but other worlds too. Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. Let's talk no more of it now. Someday your father will tell you the story when you're a little older. Then you will understand. Alright?" Sigyn asked. Leiffrid nodded. Sigyn rose, taking Leiffrid's hand again as they continued down the corridor.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki stood before the Eternal Flame, the stone of Asgard held between both hands. Staring down into the roaring cauldron with a disturbed yet determined expression, he steeled himself before placing the stone into the midst of the fire.</p><p>"With the Eternal Flame you are reborn." Loki heard himself say. The flames licking the stone changed hue into an emerald green color as they appeared to consume it, rising higher, the stone within the cauldron beginning to vibrate, then appeared to evaporate, transforming into a thick, dark mist which rose out of the flames, coalescing into a humanoid form.</p><p>Loki watched in horror as the form grew more solid, beginning to resemble a familiar figure. It was then that he felt the burning, stabbing pain rip through him, back to front. In shock, he looked down to see the blade of a bloodied sword protruding from his sternum. The blade was then withdrawn. Placing both hands over the wound, blood running from between his fingers, he turned to face his attacker, his eyes falling upon...himself looking upon the wounded, terrified Loki with a malicious sneer.</p><p>"Why?" gasped Loki to his doppelganger as he felt his life slipping away.</p><p>"Easier to let it burn." the murderous version of him said with a sinister grin before Loki's legs lost their ability to support him and he began to sink to the floor of the vault.</p><p>Loki once again found himself sitting upright in bed in the darkness. He willed his brain to this time retain as much as possible of the events he had just witnessed during his latest nightmare. He had the distinct feeling that it was the same scene as what had previously disturbed his slumber. He looked over to Sigyn who was sitting up, having been awakened by her arm that had been, as usual, draped across his chest being displaced from it. She put a hand to Loki's shoulder, looking at him with concern as he pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes as he caught his breath, sensing the calm and peace flow through him from her touch, knowing from the increased intensity of the sensation that she was purposefully accentuating it.</p><p>"Are you alright?" Sigyn asked</p><p>"Just a dream. I'm fine." Loki answered.</p><p>"Another nightmare?  Do you remember anything about it?" Sigyn sounded troubled.</p><p>"I was in the vault...I put the stone into the Eternal Flame...I called something...someone up..."</p><p>"Who?"</p><p>"I'm not certain.  It was at that moment that I ran myself through with a sword." Loki said, closing his eyes, putting a hand to his forehead.</p><p>"So you were calling something up from the Eternal Flame...and you committed suicide?" Sigyn asked, worried.</p><p>"No...I killed myself."</p><p>"Yes, that's what suicide means." Sigyn said, puzzled, though rationalizing his answer as his brain possibly still fogged from sleep.</p><p>"There was another me...or someone that looked like me." Loki clarified. Sigyn appeared thoughtful for a moment, her hand remaining on Loki's shoulder.</p><p>"I used to read books about dreams, interpreting them, their symbolism, that kind of thing...of course they were written by and for mortals, but I don't see why we would be any different really...perhaps some differing cultural symbolism..."</p><p>"More mortal rubbish." Loki grumbled in a tired voice.</p><p>"Hear me out, it actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. This all started the night you brought the stone here. Maybe deep down you still feel guilty about Asgard, what you had to do. The stone, having it here brought those thoughts, those feelings to mind. That's why in your dream you attacked yourself."</p><p>"Perhaps. I suppose it's possible." Loki admitted.</p><p>"What Leiffrid said didn't help, I'm sure. I still don't know how he knew. I had told him once that Surtur had destroyed Asgard, but nothing of your part in it. I didn't think at his age he'd understand."</p><p>"Perhaps someone in New Asgard during one of our visits, one of the other children." Loki theorized.</p><p>"I hadn't thought about that. I would have thought he would have said something, asked about it then. Maybe he had forgotten about it and the stone reminded him. Who knows what goes through that little head of his at his age. Just today when I was speaking to him about what happened with Zosime he was talking about having extra teeth, or something like that and about this talking ant in the rock again. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. It had been a long day and with Frigga being such a fussbudget the night before..."</p><p>"It does seem everyone has been off kilter. I think you're right. It would be more fitting for it to rest with the people of New Asgard. I'll put out the call tomorrow to our sculptors to submit designs, some sort of monument to house it...a gift to the people of New Asgard for Jul perhaps. It's only a few months away." said Loki.</p><p>"That's a wonderful idea. Are you feeling better now?"</p><p>"Yes, I think-" Loki began, then fell silent, appearing to be intently listening. Sigyn looked to him once again. Loki threw the blankets aside, a curious look on his face as he rose and made his way to the door of the bedchamber.</p><p>"Loki? What is it?" Sigyn asked, also tossing the blankets aside and rising, following him out of the room.</p><p>Loki entered the great room of the royal chambers from the entrance to the bedchambers. Peering in the direction from which he heard the voice, his eyes fell upon Leiffrid standing before the table, Loki barely able to make out his shape in the dark. Sitting on the table in front of him and before the stone sat Leiffrid's wolf.</p><p>"I can't do that. That would be bad. Father says I have to be good if I'm going to be King." Leiffrid said, appearing to be talking to the stone.</p><p>Loki turned up the lights as Sigyn reached his side, both looking to the young boy who turned his head towards his parents.</p><p>"Leiffie...baby...what are you doing? Who are you talking to?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"The ant. She wanted to see my wolf. She said she had one too once. Hers was much larger."</p><p>"Leiffrid, we talked about this. There's no ant in the stone. It's only your imagination. Come, let's get you back to bed." Leiffrid looked to the stone once more.</p><p>"I have to go now." Leiffrid said, reaching out and grabbing his wolf before making his way across the great room to Loki and Sigyn. Loki picked him up and turned back towards the door to the bedchambers, turning the lights off.</p><p>After tucking Leiffrid back into bed, Loki exited the child's bedroom, Sigyn standing outside.</p><p>"I'll take the stone to the vault first thing in the morning. Perhaps once it's out of his sight..."</p><p>"I think that's a good idea." Sigyn agreed, then noticed the disturbed expression on Loki's face. "What is it?"</p><p>"Nothing. I'm just played out is all." Loki responded, Sigyn looking at him cynically, knowing there was indeed something weighing on Loki's mind.</p><p>"Go back to bed. I'm going to check on Frigga. She'll be wanting fed soon." Sigyn said, bestowing upon Loki a quick kiss before turning and heading to the nursery the next room over. Loki watched her go before returning to their own bedroom and once again lying down in the bed, a dark look of trepidation falling over his features as he stared at the ceiling, deep in thought, Leiffrid's last question to him echoing in his head...</p><p>"Does it hurt to die? I don't want it to hurt when you die."</p><p>"I'll see you this afternoon if not before." Sigyn, dressed in a long blue gown said to Loki, Leiffrid's hand in hers as he clutched his wolf in the other, Frigga held in one arm as she stood by the doors. "Are you...?" Sigyn asked, glancing towards the table and the stone that rested upon it.</p><p>"Yes, this very moment in fact." Loki turned and crossed the room to the table, taking hold of the stone and carrying it back towards Sigyn and the doors.</p><p>"Where are you taking it?" Leiffrid asked, eyeing the stone, looking concerned.</p><p>"To the vault." Loki answered.</p><p>"No! Don't take it away!" Leiffrid exclaimed.</p><p>"It will be safer there." Loki told the boy. Leiffrid stood quietly for a moment as he grew calm staring at the stone in his father's hands.</p><p>"Alright." Leiffrid said, as if speaking to the stone and not his father. Loki and Sigyn looked to each other before Sigyn led the boy out through the doors and past the sentry on duty outside.</p><p>Loki carried the stone through the vault until he came upon one of the few empty pedestals. Placing the stone upon it, he turned from it, his eye catching sight of the cauldron containing the Eternal Flame. The nightmare he had experienced replayed in his mind and he turned his head, looking over his shoulder before continuing past the rows of relics to stand before it, peering down into the fire. Loki placed his hand into the flames and then removed it slowly, a small tendril of flame rising from the palm of his hand. He sensed the power imbued in it. He placed his hand back into the cauldron, relinquishing the remnant of flame, then turned and made his way towards the exit, walking past the stone where it sat upon its new resting place.</p><p>Leiffrid and Zosime sat on the floor of Zosime's bedroom, stacking clear crystalline blocks, working together to create a building from them.</p><p>"We forgot the door." Zosime said, looking at the structure under construction that sat between them.</p><p>"So we did." Leiffrid said, attempting to push a block out of one wall of the structure to create one, the wall thereafter tumbling over.</p><p>"Now we have to start over." Zosime said looking up from the pile of blocks as her eyes caught sight of something behind Leiffrid. A dark spot of grey, like a storm cloud hovered a few feet above the floor behind him, then began to expand.</p><p>"What's that?" Zosime said fearfully, pointing over Leiffrid's shoulder. He turned his head to witness the swirling dark gray cloud as it grew. Picking up the stuffed wolf that lay at his side, he stood and turned to face it.</p><p>"Come with me." Leiffrid said, holding his hand out to the frightened Zosime. She took it warily, Leiffrid leading her forward.</p><p>Leiffrid and Zosime stepped out of the cloud like portal into the vault. As they did so, the portal appeared to collapse until it was no longer visible. Zosime glanced around the vault in wonder.</p><p>"Where are we?" she asked. Leiffrid did not answer her, instead wordlessly handing her the wolf that he held in his hand. He walked a few steps looking around, peering up at the pedestals until he found that for which he searched. Reaching up so far he had to stand on his tip toes, he put a hand on either side of the stone and slid it off the pedestal. It's weight was more than he had expected and he came close to dropping it as he hefted it towards the light of the fire he saw at the end of the row of relics. "What are you doing?" Zosime asked.</p><p>Leiffrid approached the burning cauldron and stood before it, his eyes just even with its edge. "Zosime, help me." he called out. Zosime, looking worried and confused, made her way to Leiffrid's side as he attempted to lift the stone into the cauldron. Assisting him, the children managed to get the stone to its edge and released it, the stone rolling down into the flames.</p><p>"With the Eternal Flame you are reborn." Leiffrid said. The flame in the cauldron suddenly shot higher, it's color changing from orange to green. Zosime, frightened, stepped back away from the cauldron as a black, inky substance appeared to rise from the flames, slowly coalescing into a humanoid form.</p><p>The doors of the throne room flew open as Elpida, carrying the baby Frigga in her arms, frantically traversed between the columns towards the throne by which Sigyn stood, an angel, also in a blue dress standing beside her, both looking down upon what appeared to be a gold tablet. Sigyn looked up at Elpida and quickly noticing her demeanor, looked to her with apprehension.</p><p>"Elpida! What's happened? Where's Leiffrid?"</p><p>"He's missing! Zosime as well! They were in her bedroom playing as they always do. I went to check on them and they weren't there! I don't know where they could have gone! I was in the next room. Had they left I would have seen them! It's as if they vanished!" Elpida exclaimed. Sigyn said something to the angel by her side who nodded and quickly stepped down from the dais on which the throne sat and hurried through a door behind it as Sigyn stepped down and approached Elpida, taking Frigga from her.</p><p>"They have to be somewhere. They couldn't have gone far. Sariah's sending out the guards to search for them. We'll find them." Sigyn told Elpida reassuringly, at the same time attempting to reassure herself. The two women strode quickly towards the throne room doors.</p><p>Loki walked down the corridor towards the royal chambers, a stack of papers in his hand, looking over them, moving one behind the rest and studying the one now on the top of the stack. Reaching the sentry before the doors, the sentry bowed his head and opened the door for Loki as he turned and entered the great room, the doors closing behind him. Sensing an unexpected presence in the room, Loki looked up towards the settee that faced the door to see a familiar and unwelcome body seated in it, Leiffrid sitting on one side, his wolf lying in his lap, his hand upon it, Zosime on the other of the dark haired woman in the black form fitting bodysuit who he had never expected his eyes to fall upon again.</p><p>"Hello brother. Miss me?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The stack of papers that Loki had been perusing slipped from his grasp, falling scattered onto the floor at his feet as he stared in wide eyed shock and terror, his mouth agape.</p><p>"No...It's not possible...Surtur-" As Loki spoke, the doors behind him opened, Sigyn, baby Frigga in her arms, and Elpida entering and coming to a sudden stop behind Loki as their eyes fell upon the children and the dark haired woman seated on the settee.</p><p>"Leiffrid! Zosime! Loki...who-" Sigyn began, before Hela interrupted her, rising to her feet and looking to the infant held in Sigyn's arms.</p><p>"It seems you've been busy adding branches to the family tree, brother. Such a delightful child, my nephew, so amenable and helpful to his dear Aunt Hela."</p><p>"Leiffrid, Zosime...come, now!" Sigyn called to the children seated on the settee. Zosime, looking frightened as she had since Loki entered the room, rushed to Elpida and clung to her. Leiffrid, appearing confused as he viewed the fright evident in her expression and her insistent tone, looked to Hela then back to his parents and clutching his wolf, began to make his way towards them.</p><p>"What a shame. We were just getting to know each other." Hela said. Leiffrid reached Sigyn who took his hand, moving the baby to the crook of her other arm.</p><p>"What is it you want?" Loki asked.</p><p>"What do you think I want?" Hela replied.</p><p>"Asgard is no more, your source of power reduced to atoms and ash, your army along with it. Your days of conquest are over." Loki said, his expression now stony.</p><p>"I'm the Goddess of Death. As long as death is a reality in the universe, which I don't see changing any time soon, I have a limitless source of power to draw on. " Loki, Sigyn, and Elpida along with the children heard screams and shouts emanating from the streets below outside the palace. "As for an army, with the eternal flame I can create one anytime, anywhere. Yours fell almost as quickly as those of Asgard. Once again, good soldiers dying for nothing. Almost brings a tear to my eye. Almost."</p><p>"The people will never follow you." Sigyn said.</p><p>"They followed my mother, didn't they? They'll follow me, one way or another."</p><p>"Take the children! Leave this place!" Loki said urgently and quietly to Sigyn as the sounds of chaos erupting outside the palace continued.</p><p>"I can't just abandon Heven!" Sigyn said to him in the same hushed tone, torn between her duty as Queen and her responsibility as the mother of her children to ensure their safety.</p><p>"She will kill us all. We must live to fight another day." Loki replied.</p><p>"Leaving so soon? But we have so much catching up to do! You're more like dad everyday. You hadn't even told my nephew about me as if I were some dirty little secret. Leiffrid..." Hela called to the boy who looked to her upon hearing his name. "How would you like to go on a little trip?" Leiffrid looked to Hela questioningly as Sigyn began to pull him towards the door. Hela held out her palm, a bolt of white energy shooting from it. Loki dove to block it but reacted too late, the bolt going by him and hitting Leiffrid. Loki, on his belly on the floor and Sigyn both looked in horror as Leiffrid was enveloped in a bright glowing light. It dissipated, leaving empty space where Leiffrid had once stood.</p><p>"Leiffie!" Sigyn cried out as she found her hand that had once held Leiffrid's gripping nothing but air. Loki rose quickly from the floor.</p><p>"Where's my son?! What did you do with him?!" Loki shouted angrily as Sigyn sobbed in anguish.</p><p>"I sent him to the same place dear old dad sent me. I'll call him back in a few centuries, he should be toughened up by then. I'll make him my executioner. I was dad's, you know, it'd be nice to keep it in the family. My mother once sat on Heven's throne by right of conquest, by that same right it now falls to me. Kneel." Hela said, producing a sword.</p><p>The sound of shouting followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground and heavy, running feet came through the doors to the royal chambers. Loki, the sound of Sigyn's sobs in his ears from behind him, locked eyes with Hela for a moment then bowed his head, one knee beginning to bend as Hela's face broke into a sneering smile. Before Hela could react, an angelic transport cylinder appeared in Loki's grip as he turned quickly, his arms out, gathering both Sigyn, holding Frigga tightly to her, and Elipda, Zosime still clinging to her, into his arms as they were all enveloped in a pink violet light. The light faded, leaving Hela alone in the room as a moment later, the doors to the royal chambers flew open as pale, cadaverous angelic warriors with swords in their hands, their eyes now glowing green, entered.</p><p>Loki and those gathered in his arms emerged from the glow of the cylinder's light on Sigyn's island. Loki released his arms from around them. Sigyn quickly passed the infant Frigga into Elpida's arms and balling her fists, pounded them against Loki's chest in fury.</p><p>"I want my son! I want my baby back! You did this! You brought her there!" Sigyn screamed as she continued to assault Loki with her fists, knocking him back, then advancing upon him again. At last Loki took hold of both of Sigyn's wrists. She struggled to release herself from his grip for a moment, then dissolved once again into sobs, burying her face into Loki's chest before she began to sink to her knees on the ground. Loki, her wrists still in his grasp, lowered himself with her before releasing his hold and pulling her tightly to him, holding her as she sobbed in grief for a few moments before he rose to his feet.</p><p>"Stay here." Loki told the two women. Elpida, Zosime tagging along with her, the girl's expression a mix of fright and confusion, knelt by Sigyn's side, putting a comforting hand upon her back. Sigyn looked up, her face streaked with tears as she saw Loki again produce the transport cylinder.</p><p>"Where are you going!?" she asked, frantic.</p><p>"I will return. I promise you." Loki told Sigyn before he once again disappeared in the pink-violet glow.</p><p>Loki reappeared in the entryway of the New York Sanctum. Quickly searching about the room with his eyes, he had just opened his mouth to call out when Dr. Strange's voice came from behind him.</p><p>"Not even bothering with the door now, are we?" Strange asked, sounding somewhat perturbed. Loki turned towards him.</p><p>"Why should I?  You don't."</p><p>"Loki of Asgard..." Strange began.</p><p>"Yes, yes...we both know who we are...I don't have time for this. Hela...she's returned!" Loki informed Strange. Strange looked at him, alarmed.</p><p>"Your sister? Odin and Loriel's daughter? That Hela?"</p><p>"Is there another?" Loki asked sarcastically.</p><p>"I thought she was dead." Strange said.</p><p>"So did I!" Loki replied.</p><p>"I guess it runs in the family." Strange said, eyeing Loki.</p><p>"I don't have time to explain. I need them...the rings! You didn't destroy them?" Loki said, speaking quickly.</p><p>"No, but it will take a moment to recover them."</p><p>"Quickly! There's not much time!" Loki exclaimed. Strange strode from the room. He returned after a few moments, approaching Loki and opening his hand to reveal two rings, the bands in the shape of serpents, their fangs acting as the facet for the stones each held, one red and one green. Loki swiftly took them from him.</p><p>"I will do what I can to stop her, but my success is far from guaranteed. If I fail, she will eventually make her way here. Inform Valkyrie and New Asgard and prepare yourselves...not that there's much you could do..." Loki paused a moment and looked to Dr. Strange with an expression Strange could not recall seeing from Loki during their past encounters, "If we never meet again...you have my thanks...all you've done for us, for Asgard..."</p><p>"It's been my pleasure." Strange replied, his voice reflecting his surprise at Loki's expression of appreciation. Loki activated the cylinder, leaving Strange standing alone. He turned, rapidly ascending the stairway of the Sanctum.</p><p>Loki next appeared in the temple that housed the Ladder on Heven.  It was clear that chaos had already descended upon his adopted world.  A throng of Angels and Tartarans ran past him as he suddenly found himself in the midst of the stampede. Quickly, making his way through them, he emerged near where Xenia stood, her crystal topped staff activating the Ladder, its golden curtain ascending from the temple, the Angels and Tartarans rushing into it.</p><p>"My King...that is the last I could safely gather. They're everywhere! Our warriors have fought valiantly but as they fall, she collects them and they eventually rise to fight against us. She will be here soon."</p><p>"Where are you sending them?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Vanaheim...Alfheim...they will be safe there."</p><p>"Go with them. Take these." Loki deposited the rings in Xenia's hand. "You know how to use them. Return and evacuate as many more as you possibly can. Go now." Loki told Xenia.</p><p>"As you command." Xenia said, moving from the golden pedestal that controlled the Ladder, leaving her staff within it. She joined the mass of people entering the golden light of the ladder. As the last person stepped into the Ladder's shimmering curtain of light, Loki removed the staff from the pedestal.  He looked up as he heard the strange, other worldly sounds of the cadaverous army approaching, climbing the steps of the temple, Hela walking before them. Swiftly, he produced the transport cylinder and activated it just as Hela sent a necrosword in his direction. It passed through where he had recently stood.</p><p>"No!" Hela bellowed in fury.</p><p>Loki once again appeared in the yard outside of the house on the island. Sigyn, alone, Elpida having taken the children inside, paced outside it, her head bowed, resting her forehead on the palm of her hand.</p><p>"Loki!" Sigyn cried out, racing to him, throwing her arms around him.</p><p>"I told you I'd return. Have I yet broken a promise to you?" Loki told her.</p><p>"No, you haven't. I didn't mean it...it's not your fault...you didn't know..you couldn't have known." Sigyn cried, resting her head on Loki's shoulder.</p><p>"I should have realized. I should have seen it sooner.  He's alive. We know where he is. I'll bring him back. I swear it." Loki said.</p><p>"You returned to Heven?!" Sigyn asked as she seemed to just then notice the staff gripped in his hand.</p><p>"For a few moments. Long enough to prevent her from using the Ladder.  Without it she has no means to lead an army off world.  Xenia's sent as many as she could to Vanaheim and Alfheim.  They'll be safe there.  I retrieved the rings.  She's going to return for more when she can. I've at least bought us some time. We'll need it to decide our next move." Loki explained.</p><p>Loki sat outside with his back against the wall of the house as Sigyn had gone inside to tend to Frigga. He peered down at the small stone in his hand, the one that he had taken from the old woman in the gardens on Heven the day of Leiffrid's birth. His heart bled thinking of his young son imprisoned, alone and afraid, in that place. He couldn't bring himself to even think of, let alone say its name. He clung to the knowledge that at least he was alive. Whatever he was to witness or suffer during his time there he and Sigyn would help him to deal with and recover from once they were together again.</p><p>Loki ran his thumb over the symbol upon the stone, Dagaz...daylight...hope, change, clarity...all the things it stood for. The old woman's, the Watcher's words, replayed in his head. If he were ever to sail stormy seas in his life again, he would do so with a steadier hand she had told him. He had not actually sailed, over water anyway, since even before Thor had gone on his fool's errand to Jotunheim and been returned to Asgard only to be exiled to Midgard by their father. The closest he'd come since that time had been when he'd piloted the Asgardian skiff Fandral had procured for them through the secret portal to Svartleheim to face Malekith and the other dark elves in order to rid Jane Foster of the Aether. He certainly needed, and had steady hands that day, even shackled as he had been.</p><p>He remembered the exhilaration he had felt, the triumphant sensation that arose within him at his success, and also the thrill he obtained from his brother's anxiety as Thor had realized the danger. He replayed the entire scenario in his head...Malekith drawing the Aether from Jane, Thor's unsuccessful attempt to destroy it, how he had shielded the object of Thor's affections from harm, pushed her aside as a blackhole grenade was detonated nearby, feeling himself being drawn into it, only to be saved by his brother...and then using the same device against the monster who had been in the process of beating Thor to a pulp to return the favor. Loki froze for a moment, then looked up from the stone. He stood returning it to his pocket.</p><p>The large, hulking, muscular green figure in the white lab coat, one arm enclosed in a stiff brace, stood at a counter in a lab, staring at a computer screen. Raising his good hand, he moved his glasses down his nose, looking over them at the data that had just come up on the monitor.</p><p>"Damn." he said, the information obviously not what he was hoping to see. "Back to the drawing board." He startled at the familiar voice, one he had not heard address him in years, not since that darkest of days on the Statesman, that came from behind him.</p><p>"Hello, Bruce...or whatever it is you call yourself these days."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Bruce is fine. I'd also accept Dr. Banner. Had a kid suggest 'Brulk' once...I thought it was kinda catchy." Bruce Banner said as he turned to face the God of Mischief. Banner was instantly cued in by the anxiety, fatigue and grief apparent in Loki's expression that this wasn't a social call. "So...heard you got what you wanted, you're some grand poobah, emperor or whatever."</p><p>"King actually...of the Jotunheim and Heven." Loki corrected him.</p><p>"You get some two for one deal? Really...you...King of Heven..." Banner chuckled. "Would think the other place would suit you better."</p><p>"It is not the place of mortal myth. The 'other place' you refer to shares a name with a part of the realm of Nifleheim. Funny you should mention it as it's the reason I'm here."</p><p>"I was just about to ask, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Banner asked sarcastically, clearly indicating that he didn't find his uninvited guest's visit welcome, whatever the circumstances.</p><p>"I doubt you'll find the news I'm about to share any more welcome than you find my presence here. Hela...she's back. She's alive.  She's taken Heven and my son as well." Banner's expression reflected his shock at the mention of Hela.</p><p>"How? Asgard was blown to smithereens!"</p><p>"It seems it takes more than a fire demon to kill the Goddess of Death.  She's sent my son to the same loathsome place where my father imprisoned her. As long as she lives he will remain a prisoner there. Until she is destroyed, he can't be freed."</p><p>"She's not on her way here, is she?" Banner asked nervously.</p><p>"No, not for the moment. I've taken the staff. She has no means to leave or lead an army anywhere for the time being. I need your help." Banner released his breath, relieved at the news, then recalled Loki's news of his son and felt guilty. He had no love for the man that stood before him, despite all he'd heard of Loki's rehabilitation, yet the thought of a child, anyone's child...Banner held out his braced arm.</p><p>"I'm afraid those days are over for me. Not sure what I could do."</p><p>"It seems we've both tamed the beasts within us. It's not the monster I seek. For this I need your brain, not your brawn."</p><p>"Well that's a change of pace.  What do you have in mind?" Banner asked.</p><p>"I need to go back...back to a place at a particular moment in time..." Loki began.</p><p>"Oh, no...no, no, no..that's playing with fire. You should know. You should also know whatever you do back there, it doesn't change anything here."</p><p>"I wish to retrieve something, as you did the stones. It's the only thing I can think of that may possibly end her once and for all. The taking of it will alter nothing. I no longer possess the Tesseract but I do know many of its secrets. I will give that knowledge to you which along with your own should assist you in producing for me a more portable means to do so using this." Loki opened his hand, revealing a transport cylinder. "After I am successful, I will return it to you to do with as you will. If she isn't destroyed, she will eventually find a way off of Heven. She will again seek to conquer the realms of which Midgard, your Earth, is a part. My son will remain lost forever. Please...help me."</p><p>Banner looked to Loki, contemplating. He couldn't help but to believe the sincerity of the man who stood before him that he never believed he would ever trust.</p><p>"You write a manual or something? I'll need time to study it." Banner asked.</p><p>"Not exactly." Loki approached Banner. Banner could tell he was still reticent to come within his reach. Loki raised his palm up towards Banner's forehead.</p><p>"Whoa...wait...hold up....what are you doing?" Banner said, drawing his large frame back from Loki.</p><p>"A simple transfer of memory, of knowledge."  Loki assured him.</p><p>"Like a mind meld or something? I don't want that bag of cats you got in there squirming around in my brain. Erik Selvig's still not right."</p><p>"It's difficult to trust me, I know. Trust that I love my son." Loki said. Banner, once again looking into Loki's eyes, knew in his gut that Loki spoke truth and knelt down on one knee so that Loki could more easily reach him.</p><p>"You start messing around with the circuits in there, I'll make what I did to you in New York look like a love tap." Banner warned Loki. Loki placed the palm of his hand on Banner's forehead. Banner's eyes widened as his mind absorbed and processed what now flowed into it.</p><p>Leiffrid struggled to pull himself up a hill that appeared to be covered in shale like flecks of rock and dirt, all the same hue as the gray dust that now covered him. Somewhere along the way he had lost his wolf companion.  He momentarily lost his footing, sliding back several feet on his belly, grasping with his small hands to halt his descent. Finally succeeding, he once again began his climb towards the large overhanging rocky outcropping above. The shadowy forms of what appeared to be people that had come into and out of his vision since he had found himself alone in that strange, unfamiliar place, the menace that exuded from them, frightened the young boy and he was desperately searching for a hiding place.</p><p>At last reaching the top, he pulled himself onto the horizontal shelf of cold stone and then, remaining lying on his belly, turned his body to look out over the landscape below. It was devoid of all color, nothing appeared to grow. What light there was seemed to be filtered and hazy, the air heavy and damp and cold. Leiffrid, as he shivered, wished he had the maroon colored leather jacket Quill had gifted him upon his last visit four months prior not long after his sister had been welcomed into the family, the one that matched Quill's own.</p><p>Leiffrid crawled a few feet until he was under the overhang and moved himself as far back into the cave-like area as he could, disappearing in its shadow. He sat with his back against the hard, stone wall catching his breath. Tears began to stream from his eyes, leaving streaks in the dust that covered his face. A thought crossed his mind, something he had forgotten. He held out his hand, looking down at his palm where a few colored candies materialized. It was one of the few tricks his father had thus far taught him and that he had mastered. He picked up a piece of candy with his dusty hands and popped it into his mouth.</p><p>"Leiffrid...there you are." A musical voice said. Leiffrid looked up in surprise to see a woman enter the area under the overhang, catching sight of her golden hair in the hazy, dim light.</p><p>"Mother?" Leiffrid said hopefully before getting a better look at the woman in the silver and blue gown. It was as pretty as the ones his mother wore, but not the same style. As the woman neared, he got a better look at her face. "You're not my mother." he said.</p><p>"No, I am not." the woman said as she came nearer. Leiffrid slid along the wall farther from her as she approached.</p><p>"Are you one of them?" he asked, referring to the shadowy figures that had stalked him since his arrival that he had kept on the move to avoid.</p><p>"No. Do not be afraid. I'm here to help you. I am Frigga."</p><p>"That's my sister's name."</p><p>"Is it? Tell me about her." Frigga said.</p><p>"She doesn't do much. She cries and eats and sleeps. She's boring."</p><p>"Ah, well, that will change soon enough." Frigga said.</p><p>"Are you here to take me home?" Leiffrid asked.</p><p>"I'm afraid not, but I will stay with you, keep you safe until your father comes for you. Would you like to hear some stories of when your father was a boy?" Frigga asked.</p><p>"You knew my father when he was little?" Leiffrid asked.</p><p>"I certainly did. I knew your mother as well. In fact, I introduced them to each other. You must be cold." Frigga said, noticing Leiffrid shivering. She removed a cape like shawl that was draped over one shoulder and wrapped it around the young boy. "Better?"</p><p>"Yes, thank you." Leiffrid said. Frigga smiled at his polite response.  She sat down next to him.</p><p>"You remind me of your father very much. Now, where should I start? I suppose I should start at the beginning..."</p><p>Loki approached the gate of the rough wooden fence that surrounded the yard of the isolated thatched roof cottage on Vanaheim he had been directed to where resided the next person who's assistance he knew he would require if he were to see his son again. The yard was more a garden, various plants growing in neatly tended plots. Opening the gate, he cautiously entered, taking a few steps towards the dwelling. He ceased to move forward as he suddenly felt the cold steel of a knife against his throat and an arm pinning him back against the man who held it that had appeared behind him.</p><p>"I should cut your throat right here and now." a man's voice said angrily from behind Loki.</p><p>"You would have every reason to do so." Loki responded, standing as still as stone as the man behind him continued to hold it tightly to his throat.</p><p>"You're damn right I would. You're the last person I would have ever expected to darken my doorstep. What is it you want?"</p><p>"I need your help."</p><p>"You handed me over to them to save your own ass! Do you have any idea what they did to those they took prisoner? Look what they did to me!" the man lowered the knife, roughly turning Loki to face him, grasping the front of Loki's tunic. Loki looked upon the man's disfigured face. It was covered with the scars of burns and gashes.  The same covered his neck and what little Loki could see of his arms and the backs of his hands.  Loki shuddered internally at the sight.</p><p>"Steinn, I didn't-" Loki began before Steinn interrupted whatever it was he was about to say to the disfigured man.</p><p>"You were actually fool enough to think I'd help you after what you did? But then I suppose I was fool enough to think I meant something to you, believed all your promises, your lies, that even though I saw with my own eyes how you used and betrayed others, you'd never do so to me."</p><p>"I am no longer that man. Much has changed since that day."</p><p>"Oh yes, I've heard. The great Loki, king of two realms, the savior of Asgard, who even death cannot vanquish. You may have them fooled but I know what you are. Did you tell her about me, your Queen?"</p><p>"I have told her all." Loki replied.</p><p>"And she would still have you? Then she's a bigger fool than both of us put together." Steinn glowered.  Loki ignored Steinn's insult to Sigyn.  The man that stood before him was his best and perhaps his only hope to rescue Leiffrid and he knew he must tread carefully with the man who had once been a favored pupil of his mother.  Knowledge of Hel and its secrets was one of the very few things his mother had refused to teach Loki. After what he had learned of his origins, he now knew why.  </p><p>"My son has been imprisoned in Hel. You're the only one I know still living that knows its secrets, that could help me to save him." Steinn looked at Loki, at the pain in his eyes.</p><p>"Why should I care?  Why would I help the man who betrayed me?  You certainly didn't care when I was being tortured.  When I arrived back on Asgard, barely alive, you couldn't be bothered to see me...or maybe you were too much of a coward to face what you'd done."  </p><p>"You're right. I was a coward.  I don't deserve your help. As my father used to say, the sins of the parents are often visited on their children. I'll leave you to your solitude." Loki hung his head. He would have to find another way to save Leiffrid, though he had no clue as to how he would do so.  He moved around Steinn, walking back towards the gate. Reaching it, he opened it once again. Steinn stood with his back to Loki.</p><p>"Wait..."</p><p>Loki sat at the rough hewn table as Steinn poured himself and Loki a drink from a large green glass bottle, sliding the drink in front of Loki.</p><p>"You look like you could use this." Steinn said.</p><p>"Thank you." Loki replied, lifting the drink to his lips.</p><p>"Unless one is sent there by other means, as Odin did Hela and she your son, there is only one other way, one gate into and out of Hel. It is not difficult to find. That's the easy part. The hard part is passing through it. It will deny entrance to those whose souls, whose hearts are not filled with darkness, anger, hatred. Your love for your son alone will prevent your passage through it. To pass back through, it will allow only those who know love, happiness, all the things that oppose that darkness."</p><p>"How would it be possible for one person to be both?"</p><p>"That's the problem. It isn't possible. That's the point, actually. It's ironic...the person you were at your darkest would likely have easily passed through into Hel but not been able to leave it. The person you are now would be able to leave but not to enter." Steinn said as Loki took a long swallow from his mug. Loki sat the empty mug on the table, his eyes lighting up as Steinn's words spurred an idea in his head. His hopes rested now on Banner's success.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sigyn lay the dozing infant Frigga into the cradle in the bedroom and gazed down at the tranquil child. She recalled the many, many times she had done the same when Leiffrid was the same age. Elpida entered the room, looking over to Sigyn before joining her near the cradle.</p><p>"She has no idea what's going on. It's just another day to her." Sigyn said quietly. "I thought we were safe with Loriel gone. I should be there. If only I could be two people. We promised your people that you'd be safe, that you'd no longer have to live in fear." Sigyn said mournfully. "I failed everyone, I failed my son...and once again here I am, hiding."</p><p>"None of this is your fault." Elpida said, attempting to assuage Sigyn's grief and guilt.</p><p>"I just want this nightmare to be over. I don't even care about the throne. I want my son back." Sigyn said as she wiped tears from her eyes. "Will you stay with her? I'm going for a walk. I just...I need to be alone for awhile. I need to think."</p><p>"Yes, of course."</p><p>Sigyn left the bedroom, traversing the short hallway into the sitting room where Zosime sat on the couch watching a movie. Sigyn looked over to the little girl who seemed to be staring blankly at the screen. Putting her plans on hold for the moment, Sigyn took a seat beside her.</p><p>"I guess this is all pretty scary, huh?"</p><p>"Is he going to come back?" Zosime asked. Sigyn realized she was referring to Leiffrid, that he was the little girl's only concern at the moment despite finding herself on a strange world far from the only home she knew.</p><p>"We're going to get him back, I promise." Sigyn told her, "Loki and I were friends just like you and Leiffie when we were children. We were separated too for awhile. Everything's going to be alright."</p><p>"I miss him." Zosime said sadly. Sigyn looked upon the little girl and though she was far younger than Sigyn had been when she had been exiled from Asgard, she wondered if she had looked as lost as Zosime did now. She was sure she had.</p><p>"I know. I do too." Sigyn said, putting her arms around the girl, then rising from the couch. She turned towards the door as it opened, Loki entering. Sigyn moved quickly towards him, then noticed there was another behind him. Sigyn looked to the stranger, hoping that he hadn't noticed the split second of shock that she was sure had crossed her features as she first caught sight of his disfigured face. She and the man locked eyes as Loki stepped aside as the stranger enter.</p><p>Hela sat on the throne of Heven as the doors of the throne room were opened and two cadaverous angel soldiers, their eyes glowing green entered, leading Mariel. As they approached the throne, Hela glared upon the angelic woman.</p><p>"It has come to my attention that you once served my mother when she sat upon this same throne." Hela said to Mariel.</p><p>"I have served two queens." Mariel answered.</p><p>"You will now serve a third." Hela rose from the throne, extending her arm and producing a bloodaxe. The two soldiers on either side of Mariel roughly forced her down onto her knees as Hela approached. One of the soldiers held out a transport cylinder and placed it into Hela's free hand. "Your previous queen and her king, tell me where I can find them."</p><p>"I do not know. They did not tell me. I am only a servant." Mariel answered. Hela turned her head, motioning with it to another cadaverous soldier who stood by the door behind the dais where the throne sat. He opened the door, three more soldiers entered the throne room through the door, pushing five angelic women in blue dresses towards Hela. As they reached the presentation area where Mariel sat on her knees, the soldiers forced them to theirs as well, facing her. Mariel and the other women looked at each other, fear in their eyes.</p><p>"Oh, but I think you do know." Hela approached the first angelic attendant in the row and raised the axe.</p><p>"That's the man you once told me about...the one you..." Sigyn paused as she and Loki walked across the grassy field of the island, recalling Steinn's horrific scars, "Do you trust him?" Sigyn asked warily.</p><p>"I don't see that we have a choice." Loki replied.</p><p>"I know you told me what happened, but seeing it...as I once told Sif, it's difficult for me to reconcile the man I know with the man you once were."</p><p>"It's true, I betrayed him, he was not the first nor was he the last, but I never intended...I thought he would spend a few days in a cell and then be exchanged as my father often did with prisoners of war. Eventually that did happen, but by that time there was not much that could be done for him. After his return we did not speak again. He had no wish to remain on Asgard. At the time I saw it as convenient. Prior to the battle he had become a sort of millstone around my neck. I cared little then for anyone or anything except what I thought would benefit me in the moment. It was a strange time. I was unsure of many things."</p><p>"It takes time for us to come to know who and what we really are, even mortals. You had more complicating that journey than most." Sigyn said.</p><p>"To put it mildly." Loki responded.</p><p>"We both did, I suppose. I didn't even know what I really looked like for most of my life." Sigyn said.</p><p>"My Queen! My King!" the familiar voice of Xenia said from in front of them. Both Loki and Sigyn stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of her, taking note of the urgency in her voice, as she stepped out of the green portal. "She is coming! You must leave this place!"</p><p>Bruce Banner stood in his lab holding the modified transport cylinder in his large green hand, extending it to Loki after having instructed Loki on its operation. The cylinder was now attached to another flat rectangular device of similar size. Loki took it, examining it carefully.</p><p>"That's pretty much it. Should get you where and when you want to go. Tested it myself and I didn't come back in diapers so you should be good." Banner said. Loki looked to Banner with nervous questioning. "When Tony and I first developed the tech, had a few bugs come up we had to work out. Nothing to worry about. Good luck...I hope you find your son." Banner said.</p><p>"Thank you. I'll be seeing you soon." Loki told him as he activated the device, Banner finding himself once again alone.</p><p>Loki took in the desolate landscape of Svartleheim. He looked down at the body of the Einherjar that lay at his feet, the guard who's identity he had stolen before returning to Asgard and usurping the throne from his father. At the time, he had not felt the least bit of regret or remorse over his actions, the fate of the man who had faithfully served his father and Asgard, but now felt a pang of guilt.</p><p>"May you rest in Valhalla," Loki said quietly. Looking off in the distance, he saw what he had come for. Making his way across the ground where he and his brother had battled the dark elves a short time before, he reached those he had dispatched before coming to the aid of Thor as he battled the monstrous, mutated dark elf that had come close to ending the life of the God of Thunder. Circling the bodies, he knelt next to one.</p><p>Loki appeared on the island only to find, as he had feared, that Hela had already arrived and left just as quickly. The house was engulfed in flames. He watched stoically for a few moments as it burned, the roof that Barton had been repairing the day of Leiffrid's birth collapsing as embers rose high into the air. The smoke billowed off of the island, out over the ocean. He heard the sound of glass breaking as the heat of the flames shattered the windows. Loki activated the cylinder, once again disappearing into its light.</p><p>Hela stood raising her axe over Mariel who knelt, two cadaverous angelic soldiers on either side of her, in the presentation area before the throne of Heven.</p><p>"Hela!" Loki's voice called from the aisle leading to the throne. Hela, Mariel, and the guards both looked up and over to him as he approached, Xenia's staff in his hands. "Is this what you're looking for?"</p><p>"So...you finally see reason. What changed your mind?"</p><p>"Her." Loki said. Hela looked to Mariel.</p><p>"You would give up your throne...hand over the fate of the entire universe for a simple servant?"</p><p>"She is far more than that to me." Loki responded. Hela appeared confused for a moment before a grin spread across her face.</p><p>"Oh! I see. Ah, well, Father had his too, though I'm sure he thought I didn't know. I suppose the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."</p><p>"Release her and return my son to me."</p><p>Hela lowered the axe and nodded at one of the soldiers who took hold of Mariel's arm and raised her, shoving her roughly towards Loki, sending her sprawling on the floor. Loki helped her to her feet, embracing her.</p><p>"Go. Now." Loki said quietly into her ear. Mariel complied, moving past Loki towards the throne room doors.</p><p>"You see, I can be reasonable, I'm not a monster. I'm also no fool." Hela said to Loki.</p><p>Loki approached Hela who held out both hands to receive the staff. Loki laid it in her hands as she looked down at it. Before Hela realized what was happening, Loki dived away from her as the staff disappeared, replaced by a black hole grenade sitting in one of Hela's hands. As it detonated, Loki looked up from where he lay on the floor to see Hela sucked into its gravity and crushed, torn apart, her atoms scattered by its force.</p><p>The green glow in the cadaverous soldiers' eyes faded, their bodies falling limply to the floor of the throne room. Soon after a green portal opened, Xenia stepping through it holding Surtur's crown.</p><p>"Well...that was far easier than the first time around." Loki said to her, sounding astounded at his own success before picking himself up off the floor.</p><p>"The Queen will be pleased it wasn't necessary to destroy the planet." Xenia said, handing over the crown.</p><p>"I'm sure she will be. It was unnerving just knowing they were in the same room once again. I will return it now to Asgard's vault." Loki said, producing the modified transport cylinder in his hand. "Tell the people they will return home soon. Bring back a party to collect the bodies of our fallen." Loki said, producing the actual staff and handing it to Xenia.</p><p>"It will be done." Xenia said.</p><p>"You talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You've made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did." Nick Fury said to the Asgardian confined in the glass cage who grinned menacingly back at him.</p><p>"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is." Loki replied.</p><p>"Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something." Fury quipped as he strode to the exit of the detention section of the helicarrier. As Fury exited, he passed an armed guard who watched him until he lost sight of him as Fury turned a corner.</p><p>Loki in his cell, his back turned to the entrance, glowered as he stared through impenetrable glass and clasped his hands behind his back, deep in thought. He knew he need only be patient until the time for the second phase of his plan arrived, yet he still chafed at being contained, at his loss of freedom.</p><p>"You should get used to this. Father has something similar waiting for you back home." A voice, his own voice, said from behind him. Loki turned, confused as his eyes fell upon his own reflection with only a few minor alterations.</p><p>"What is this? What game is Fury playing?" Loki said in annoyance as he looked his doppelganger up and down before his face broke into a grin. "I know what you are...what is it mortals call such things...a hologram. I'm supposed to believe you're some manifestation of my conscience or that I've lost my mind and then I'll reveal all he wishes to know. Clever….but not that clever."</p><p>Loki outside of the cell balled his hand into a fist and slammed it on the glass. Loki inside the cell felt the cell shake, nervously looking down.</p><p>"Could a hologram do that?" Loki asked himself from outside the cell.</p><p>"Not that I'm aware. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from doing that again." Loki answered from within. "So who or what are you then? What do you want?"</p><p>"I'm exactly who I look like. I'm you, though it pains me to admit it. I need your help. My son...I suppose I should say our son, your son-" Loki began.</p><p>"I have no son."</p><p>"Not yet." Loki replied. The version of him within the cell chuckled.</p><p>"I'm supposed to believe you're from the future? Fury must think I'm an idiot. Even the Allfather cannot traverse through time."</p><p>"That's exactly what I'm telling you. My..our son has been imprisoned in Hel. I need your help to rescue him."</p><p>"I suppose there are those who would say that's a fitting place for any child of mine." Loki said with a dark grin from within the cell.</p><p>"If you agree to help me, help him, I will release you from this cell and after he is returned safely I will take you to a treasure that makes the Tesseract seem but a useless bauble."</p><p>"That's a bold claim. If you are me, you should know there is nothing in the universe yet known that compares to the Tesseract's power. Besides, I doubt I will be here much longer."</p><p>"Your compatriots will be somewhat delayed. I'm afraid they've run into a bit of mechanical difficulty. The beast will not be unleashed this day." Loki from outside the cell informed his past self. Loki from within the cell looked at him unable to disguise his shock.</p><p>"How did you know…." the imprisoned Loki asked aghast.</p><p>"I know every part of your scheme...Stark Tower, the portal, the Chitauri. I also know it will fail. You would do well to abandon this...what was it our brother called it, oh yes, this poisonous dream." Loki told himself from outside the cell.</p><p>"You're telling the truth." Loki's past self said in disbelief.</p><p>"It may be hard for you to believe, but I have come to appreciate truth and many things I...we once disdained."</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"My Queen!" Mariel called out in relief as she spied Sigyn, toting Frigga in her arms, making her way down the corridor of the palace, Steinn, Elpida and Zosime following behind her. Two angels walked by carrying between them the corpse of a dead angel of the palace guard, Elpida shielding Zosime's eyes, though she had already caught sight of it before Elpida had the chance to do so. Sigyn, for the first time since her eyes had fallen upon Hela in the royal chambers, smiled at her trusted servant and friend as she swiftly approached, her expression changing, however, as Mariel fell to her knees before her, weeping.</p><p>"Mariel! Is everyone alright?" Sigyn asked, referring to the other ladies of the court, sure that Mariel's grief meant a loss or losses among them.</p><p>"Yes, we have all survived." Mariel said, continuing to weep at Sigyn's feet.</p><p>"What is it then?"</p><p>"It was I who told her where you had gone! I should be dismissed for my betrayal!" Mariel sobbed. Sigyn knelt down, taking Mariel's hand in her free hand as she held Frigga and raised the woman to her feet. She knew full well that Mariel would never have freely divulged the information and could only have been forced to do so by a dire threat.</p><p>"I would never dream of doing so. It's alright. It's over now." Sigyn said, wrapping her free arm around Mariel, embracing her. Mariel looked to those behind Sigyn.</p><p>"The Prince, your son? He has not been returned to you?" Mariel asked.</p><p>"No, but we know where he is." Sigyn stepped aside and gestured to Steinn. "This is Steinn. He's...he's an old friend of Loki's. He's here to help us to bring Leiffrid back. If you could prepare rooms for him..." Sigyn asked. She knew the best thing for Mariel was to be assigned a task, to as quickly as possible return to some semblance of normality. Mariel looked to Steinn.</p><p>"Yes...of course." Mariel answered, wiping the tears from her cheeks, then turning and moving off down the corridor.</p><p>"You so easily forgive such a betrayal?" Steinn asked.</p><p>"I know Mariel well. She has faithfully served us since our reign began...before that actually. I'm sure she felt she had no choice. I can only imagine what Hela threatened her with." Sigyn answered.</p><p>"Zosime and I will return home now." Elpida said, moving up beside Sigyn, wishing to shield the girl from seeing any more than she had already witnessed.</p><p>"Yes, of course. Thank you for everything." Sigyn said to Elpida. She looked down upon Zosime, who still retained a sad and lost look in her eyes. Sigyn knelt down beside her as she had Mariel. "You will be the first one to know when Leiffrid returns home." Sigyn told her. Zosime nodded. Sigyn rose as Elpida led the girl by the hand down the corridor. Sigyn turned to Steinn.</p><p>"You can wait with me in the royal chambers for Loki to return." Sigyn said, leading Steinn down the corridor to where it met another and turning the corner.</p><p>"No tricks.  I know that's like asking you not to breathe." Loki told his past self who approached the door to the cell in the detention section of the helicarrier. Loki within the cell feigned an expression of hurt and insult.</p><p>"You don't trust yourself?" he asked.</p><p>"Would you not think anyone a fool who does?" Loki asked. "If I were to be such a fool, I know the moment I were to open this door, I would find a dagger in my throat. Thereafter you would disguise yourself as one of the many soldiers that people this craft, retrieve the scepter, take control of the mind of a pilot along with various others to assist you in sabotaging the engines, and if the opportunity arose, unleash the beast for good measure before making your escape." Loki within the cell stood staring at his double, his mouth agape. "Turn around and put your hands behind your back. Once I open the door, walk out to me slowly." Loki commanded.</p><p>Loki within the cell complied, his future self then opening the cell door. He walked backwards slowly. Upon reaching the door, Loki outside of it took hold of the back of his tunic, drawing him out the door before quickly shackling his wrists. He then produced the modified transport cylinder and taking a firm grip of his double's arm, activated it, both vanishing.</p><p>The two reappeared in the dungeons of Heven. Loki led his shackled past self into a cell and removed the shackles before quickly stepping out and activating the force field. Loki within the cell turned to face his future self.</p><p>"I don't see this as being a vast improvement over my previous situation. Is this truly necessary?" he asked.</p><p>"Yes, for the moment. I would ask you if you'd like a book, but you won't be here long.  I know how irksome it is to start one and then be unable to finish." Loki told him from outside the cell. "Perhaps you could use this time to bask in the success of your escape."</p><p>"I would so have loved to have seen their faces when they returned to find naught but an empty cell." Loki grinned.</p><p>"I believe my own escape was more satisfying. Once again our brother fell for the oldest trick in the book and found himself imprisoned." Loki informed his past self. "The look on his face..."</p><p>"So my plan was successful. Will he ever not fall for that?" Loki within the cell said.</p><p>"I asked him the same before I sent him plummeting to the ground." Loki informed his past self. "Of course, he found a means of escape as we both knew deep down he would. I will return shortly." Loki turned from the cell.</p><p>"I will wait with bated breath." Loki said from within the cell.</p><p>Loki ascended the balcony stairs from the courtyard of the palace as Mariel exited the golden double doors onto the balcony.</p><p>"My King...Loki...The Queen and your friend have arrived. I believe they await you in your chambers. I have prepared your friend rooms. My sister's monument..."</p><p>"Everything seems to be as it was. Unfortunately I can't say the same for Sigyn's home on the island." Loki said. Mariel looked down at her feet.</p><p>"It was I that told her where you could be found. She threatened to execute all the court ladies. I would have sacrificed myself willingly, but I could not make that choice for them...my only hope was that Xenia would see and reach you in time."</p><p>"She did, obviously. We have lost too many. If the sacrifice of a simple dwelling saved lives, I am pleased to have given it up. A house can be rebuilt."</p><p>"Yes, but it will never be the same house. I know the Queen was quite attached."</p><p>"No, it will not be. It will be better. Sometimes it's easier...better, to let it burn.  As you know I once lost my life, I was returned and built a better one. I far prefer this one over what went before." Loki said glancing across the courtyard at the entrance to the building housing the dungeons. "I hope my ruse did not cause you embarrassment." said Loki. Mariel looked up with a slight smile.</p><p>"I used a similar tactic with Loriel." Mariel admitted. Loki looked to her curiously. He had previously never thought to ask or been told exactly what Mariel had said to convince Loriel to willingly walk into the trap set for her. Mariel quickly changed the subject. "Your Queen awaits...as does your son."</p><p>Loki entered the royal chambers, the door opened for him by the sentry stationed there. Loki noted with surprise how quickly everyone had fallen back into familiar protocol and routine. He knew, however, there were many losses to mourn which he and Sigyn would see to as soon as Leiffrid was safely returned home. As he entered, he looked down to see the designs for the monument to house the stone he had been perusing remained scattered on the floor where he had dropped them. He thought it strange that Sigyn had not collected them upon her arrival home, but then she of course had another matter on her mind, as did he.</p><p>The room sat empty though Mariel had informed him that she and Steinn awaited him there. It seemed unlikely she would have left to go elsewhere, even to show Steinn to the rooms Mariel had prepared for him, knowing that he would soon arrive and how anxious they both were to rescue Leiffrid.</p><p>The cry of an infant sounded from the doorway to the bedchambers, answering Loki's question and setting him at ease. Sigyn must be seeing to Frigga in the nursery. She must have had an attendant show Steinn to his rooms to await Loki's return and to prepare for their journey to Nifleheim there.</p><p>Loki walked through the entrance to the bedchambers following Frigga's wails. He was just passing by his and Sigyn's own bedchamber on his way to the nursery as Steinn's voice reached his ears.</p><p>"Welcome home." Steinn said. Loki froze in the corridor, turning his head towards the open door to the bedchamber. Sitting on the bed, his legs stretched out before him, his back against the headboard of the bed sat Steinn and beside him, bound and gagged, sat Sigyn, Steinn's arm around her, resting on her shoulder, holding a knife to her throat. Sigyn looked to Loki in wide eyed fright, attempting frantically to speak, but muffled by the gag.</p><p>Loki stepped into the bedroom and stood near the end of the bed, horrified at what he saw before him though he attempted to outwardly exude calm. Frigga's cries continued from her crib in the nursery two rooms down.</p><p>"Let her go. She's done you no wrong." Loki said in an even voice.</p><p>"As I did you no wrong.  I didn't deserve what you did, what they did to me. Knowing what you are, all you've done, she chose to marry you, to make you happy, to give you a throne. You deserve none of that."</p><p>"You're right. I don't. Do what you will with me. Release her." Loki said to Steinn.</p><p>"I want you to see it, to see all your hopes and dreams, your happiness die, to see all of that taken from you as they were taken from me." Steinn said menacingly.  </p><p>"The Steinn I knew would not harm an innocent woman."  Loki said to him. </p><p>"The Steinn you knew is dead.  He died a long time ago.  Now it's your turn."  Steinn said before vanishing from Sigyn's side as Sigyn suddenly burst her bonds, pulling the gag from her mouth.</p><p>"Loki! Behind you!" Sigyn cried out.</p><p>Before he could act, Steinn appeared behind Loki, driving a dagger into his back. Loki collapsed to the floor as Steinn, behind him withdrew the dagger. He looked down on the prone form of Loki lying at his feet as Loki began to attempt to pull himself along the floor away from his attacker. Steinn raised the dagger once again as a hand reached out from behind him, twisting his wrist, forcing him to drop the dagger as Loki disappeared from the floor. Steinn spun around to see Loki behind him. At the same time that Loki thrust his own dagger into Steinn's gut, his other hand shot out, Loki placing his palm to Steinn's forehead.</p><p>Loki witnessed, as Steinn did, a replay of the memory of the moment that Loki threw him to the ground before the foe they had fought that day, they roughly dragging Stein away as Loki turned his back and quickly absconded from the scene.  Following that, Loki witnessed Steinn's memories of torture...the burnings, the whippings, the gashes across his face from the spiked chains and other instruments designed only to produced suffering with which he'd been beaten. Loki withdrew the dagger and his hand from Steinn's forehead as Steinn dropped to his knees to the floor, his hands over his bleeding wound. Loki quickly grabbed Steinn's arm, the man appearing to be paralyzed with shock, and lifted him from the floor, holding him up, as he produced the transport cylinder, both men vanishing in a pink-violet light as Sigyn looked on, stunned, then rushed from the room as Frigga's cries continued from the nursery.</p><p>Loki and Steinn reappeared out of the light of the transport cylinder in the physician's surgery in the palace. Loki dragged Stein to a padded exam table and assisted him to lay upon it as the physician turned from across the room where she was treating another patient and rushed over.</p><p>"My King! What happened-"</p><p>"Help him! You must save him or my son is lost to us!" Loki said quickly.</p><p>"I will do all I can." The physician assured him.</p><p>The physician immediately began to tend to Steinn, examining his wound as Loki stepped back and finding a chair, sat down heavily, putting a hand over his mouth as his mind processed the scenes that he had witnessed from Steinn's memory. They had not been what Loki had intended to search for from within Steinn's brain. He now realized those memories were at the forefront of Steinn's mind every minute of every day, and had been since the day they had taken place. Loki sat, a look of horror in his eyes as he watched the physician begin her work.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki had expected quite a wait to learn of Steinn's prognosis. He recalled how seconds seemed to stretch into hours as he had awaited word of Sigyn's fate after she had been injured in an almost identical manner. His mind remained stunned by what he had witnessed from his search of Steinn's memory banks as he appeared to stare blankly, at first not noticing the physician who stood before him, not having expected her to be finished so quickly.  He had momentarily forgotten the vast difference between the mortal technology that New Asgard's physician, Ragna, had been forced to use and what was available on Heven.</p><p>"My King..." the physician said, possibly for the second time, Loki wasn't sure as he had tuned out from the world around him. He looked up from where he was seated. "The damage was easily repaired. I have healed the wound. He will live. However, I am concerned as to his cognitive state. He should be awake and alert yet he seems as if his mind has endured a great shock and has shut itself down. Could you tell me what happened? It may assist me in treating it."</p><p>"He attacked me. He blames me, rightly so I'm afraid, for the scars he now carries. I had no choice but to defend myself. In doing so, I caused him to relive his torture of long ago."</p><p>"I had of course noticed the scarring. The trauma must have been great. It may take much time before he recovers."</p><p>"How much time?" Loki asked.</p><p>"I do not know. It is difficult to say." The physican informed Loki. Loki rested his face in his hand.</p><p>"Place him in restraints and under guard. Notify me as soon as he awakens." Loki said. "If I'm not available, notify the Queen. I will give her instructions on what is to be done with him."</p><p>"It is regarding the Queen I now come to you." Xenia said from the doorway to the physician's surgery. Loki raised his head to peer over to her.</p><p>"I should have returned to her sooner." Loki said as he stood.</p><p>"You will not find her here." Xenia informed Loki.</p><p>Loki stood in the same spot where he had arrived on the island, watching Sigyn silently as she sat in the grass, the infant Frigga seated in her lap. She sat with her back to him, facing the charred remains of what had once been her home on the island, hot spots within the rubble still sending plumes of smoke into the air. Finally, bowing his head, he advanced towards her, Sigyn unaware of his approach.</p><p>"Sigyn...my love..." Loki said gently, hoping not to startle her. Sigyn remained staring ahead as Frigga played contentedly in her lap, oblivious to the circumstances that sent tears coursing down Sigyn's face. Loki put a hand on Sigyn's shoulder as he seated himself next to her.</p><p>'It's gone...it's all gone. Everything." Sigyn said quietly.</p><p>"We will rebuild it...bigger and better than before." Loki assured her. "I had already been considering the possibility. Perhaps another couple of rooms at least."</p><p>"Why?" Sigyn glanced over at Loki then back to the rubble before understanding came to her, "Oh....no...no....I don't think so. I know we had talked about....but after all this.  This is exactly what I always feared." Sigyn said hanging her head. "He never intended to help us. Our son, he's gone...we're not getting him back, are we?." Sigyn said as she began to weep. Loki put an arm around her pulling her close.</p><p>"Steinn lives, but at the moment he would be unable to help us even if he wished to do so. I will find another way, I promise you. There has to be someone else that knows such things."</p><p>"Wait...what about Stephen? Stephen Strange.  Sif told me when we were trapped on Tartarus that he took her to a library. If there was a book about Tartarus, maybe there's one that could help us." Loki took Sigyn's head between his hands and kissed her before next quickly kissing Frigga on the head before standing. Sigyn rose to her feet, Frigga in her arms.</p><p>"Return home. I have ordered Steinn to be restrained and kept under guard.  He will trouble you no further." Loki told her.</p><p>"Wouldn't the dungeons be a safer place to hold him?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"No...no one is to enter the dungeons. Not until I return." Loki told her. Sigyn looked to him, confused.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"I have a prisoner there...a special case I suppose you could say...he is to see and interact with no one, especially you." Loki told her. Her confused expression did not abate. "I will join you soon." Loki said before once again vanishing. Sigyn looked mournfully once more in the direction where the house once stood.</p><p>Loki peered past the desk at the rows of books shelved behind it in the library of Kamar-Taj as Dr. Strange stood at his side, considering all the knowledge contained within them, knowledge even he was not privy to. They also led him to think of his past self wiling away his time isolated in his cell in Heven's dungeons with nothing to occupy him but his own thoughts...which Loki knew could be a dangerous thing. He had told him that he wouldn't be there long not having foreseen Steinn's actions and subsequent delays. But then, if Steinn had been telling the truth, an angry, brooding version of himself that had been left alone for an extended amount of time with nothing but his dark thoughts would actually be preferable.</p><p>"For someone that claims to have put the darkness in their rear view mirror, you certainly seem to have a way of running into it head on." Strange said cynically to Loki.</p><p>Wong reappeared from behind the far shelves carrying a large, dusty tome in his hands. Reaching the desk, he sat the book upon it and blew the dust off the top, sending a cloud of it directly onto Loki and up into his face.</p><p>"If you wouldn't mind..." Loki said, irritated, waving the dust away from his face.</p><p>"Oh...sorry." Wong said, though Loki was pretty sure Wong's apology was far from sincere. Wong opened the book. "This is from the Ancient One's personal library, written in her own hand. It has not been opened since her time here. Hel..." Wong said as he flipped the first page of the book.</p><p>"With one L." advised Loki. "Not to be confused with the realm of mortal myth. Those of long ago appear to have been confused, as they often were. Their description fits far more accurately with Muspelheim, the land of fire, where Surtur once reigned."</p><p>"I don't think it matters one L or two. The Ancient One wrote this particular volume in a language even I do not recognize." Wong said, looking down in surprise at the strange script on the page and each subsequent page as he flipped through a few more. Strange looked to the book as well.</p><p>"Where may I find this 'Ancient One' in order for her to translate it?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Not on this plane." Wong told him, Loki looked at him, confused.</p><p>"She passed from this life many years ago. I was with her at the time." Strange informed Loki. Loki looked down at the book, bereft.</p><p>"Why would she wish this knowledge to be such a secret? My own mother knew much about it, though she chose to share it with few others, not even myself, actually with only one that I am aware."</p><p>"The dark creatures of Tartarus are relatively easy to defeat, all considered. However, those of Hel...they cannot be killed-" Wong began.</p><p>"Only contained. Yes, I know."</p><p>"Then you know how dangerous it would be for such knowledge to fall into the wrong hands, for such beings to be released upon the universe, especially in large numbers." said Wong.</p><p>"And my son is trapped alone and helpless with such beings at this very moment! I must find a way..."</p><p>"You mentioned that your mother knew...you have the Horn of Naglfar in your vault. Could you not call her to you?" Strange asked.</p><p>"I'm afraid not," Loki said forlornly, "Those in Valhalla may only answer its call once. She did so to fight Loriel alongside us at the Battle of New Asgard." Loki looked thoughtful for a moment. He could return to Heven, use the horn to call up this Ancient One, but then, answering the call was voluntary and there was no guarantee she would answer it. He then thought of the device in his possession. He could return to a past Asgard, ask his mother...yet he had experienced more than enough heartache recently. He was not sure he wanted to place himself there with her once again unless absolutely necessary. Looking at the book lying open before Wong on the desk, he could not help but find the volume of information it seemed to contain impressive, though he, nor anyone else could read it. "The Ancient One, how long ago could she have been found here?"</p><p>The bald, fair skinned woman sitting on a mat on the floor meditating as the smoke of incense wafted around her slowly opened her eyes as she sensed another presence in the dimly lit room. Her vision fell upon the dark haired man in the black and green tunic who stood in the middle of the room facing her.</p><p>"Loki of Asgard. I've been expecting you. You're right on time, though I suppose Asgardians are known to be punctual." the Ancient One said in her lilting voice.</p><p>"You know who I am?" Loki asked, puzzled.</p><p>"I do. You kept me quite busy fending off your army's attacks on the Sanctum in New York. I am also aware of the reason for your visit. You seek my help to release your son from the realm of Hel."</p><p>"How do you know this? It will be many years before-" Loki asked, astounded.</p><p>"I am able to see into the future, glimpses, though only within my own lifetime."</p><p>"Then you are a witch."</p><p>"No, " the Ancient One said smiling, "though we share much of the same knowledge. We are not so different...witches, you and I...we all draw energy from other dimensions to do magic on this plane."</p><p>"My mother was herself a witch, descended from a long line of witches, though she found her ability to view the future limited."</p><p>"The future is not set in stone. There are many possible paths it could take, though some events are inevitable." The Ancient one said before rising from the floor. "What do you know of Hel?" she asked.</p><p>"Very little, I'm afraid. It's why I've sought you out. My mother refused to teach me what she knew of its secrets."</p><p>"Your mother was very wise. The darkness she sensed within you would have made it a risky endeavor. Even so, there were those outside of Hel that took advantage of it to the detriment of many."</p><p>"That is so. However, those days are behind me."</p><p>"Yes, but do not allow yourself to become overconfident. You are aware now from whence it originated which is to your advantage, but you must remain ever vigilant."</p><p>"A...friend, with whom she chose to share those secrets has told me that only those filled with darkness may enter the gate which is the only entrance, other means of transport are useless, and only those imbued with the opposite may exit."  Loki repeated to her what Steinn had previously told him.</p><p>"Your friend is correct. The problem is finding one to serve as your proxy. That kind of darkness would usually preclude one from being selfless enough to rescue anyone, even a child.  They would view with disdain such sentiment."  The Ancient One said.  Loki recalled his one time disdain for 'sentiment' and knew her to be correct.</p><p>"Not if they've been offered something they believe will be of great benefit to them. I have already secured a proxy. He rests now in the dungeons awaiting my return."</p><p>"Then I suppose all that remains to be done is to show you the way. Of course I must be returned to this exact moment in time. I'm awaiting another visitor this day, one that reminds me a great deal of yourself. If he can overcome his ego and sense of self importance he will do great things."</p><p>Sigyn and Mariel stood at the foot of the bed, two angelic guards on either side of the door, inside a stark white room. The two women stared down at Steinn, dressed in a loose white shirt and pants as he lay unconscious and motionless, his arms and legs bound in metallic restraints.</p><p>"Can you do anything for him?" Sigyn asked Mariel.</p><p>" I will try. Are you sure that you wish me to?" Mariel asked, having been informed of Steinn's previous actions.</p><p>"He's right. He didn't deserve what was done to him. If there's anything that can be done to ease even some of his pain...I'm not talking physically, we'll deal with that later."</p><p>"I understand."</p><p>"You should prepare yourself. What you learn from him will not be pleasant. If at any time it becomes too much, if you wish to stop I understand. You will likely learn something of Loki too, the man he used to be. It may shock you to know he was not always the man he is today. I'm sure I need not tell you anything you do learn must be kept in the strictest confidence."</p><p>"Of course. I am aware of much already due to our previous-" Mariel stopped herself, looking uncomfortable.</p><p>"Yes...I know. It's alright. You may be taken back even farther and learn more that you will likely find unpleasant." Sigyn told her.</p><p>"I care only that he is the man he is today. The past is the past." Mariel assured Sigyn. "I will do my best to ease his suffering." Mariel said as she moved to sit on the bed at Steinn's side, looking down upon him as she put her fingers to his temples.</p><p>Leiffrid lay sleeping with his head in Frigga's lap as she stroked his hair. She looked up to see a group of dark, shadowy figures gathered at the entrance to their shelter. Frigga raised her hand with her palm out, facing them.</p><p>"Be gone, vile creatures! You are not welcome here!" A golden blast of energy shot from Frigga's palm towards the figures, spreading as it reached them, knocking them back. Leiffrid stirred, sleepily raising himself up.</p><p>"What are they?" he asked.</p><p>"They are demons, dark creatures. You have something that they do not so you interest them." Frigga explained. Leiffrid looked confused.</p><p>"I don't have anything. I lost Wolfie and I ate all my candy." Leiffrid said. Frigga smiled at Leiffrid's response.</p><p>"What you have is inside of you...your light, your innocence, all that gives you life and makes you who you are."</p><p>"I have a light inside me?" Leiffrid asked, puzzled. He looked down at his torso.</p><p>"You most certainly do. It's not a light that you can see with your eyes but it shines bright for those who know how to see it."</p><p>"Can father see it? Is that how he'll find me? Is he coming soon?"</p><p>"Yes...to all your questions. I have told you of your father. Would you like now to hear of his father, Odin, the King of Asgard?"</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sigyn stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, her gaze resting on the building housing the rarely utilized dungeons of Heven. Though Loki had informed her that within was held a prisoner, there had been no guard posted outside as was protocol whenever a cell was occupied. It all struck her as strange.</p><p>Loki had eliminated Hela and all of Hela's acolytes had been angels she had murdered and resurrected whose bodies had returned to the stillness of death upon her demise. Why had he not told her of this mysterious prisoner's existence before? Had he discovered a traitor in their midst? That did not explain his secrecy however, or why he had insisted that no one enter the dungeon. If this prisoner was so important or possibly so dangerous, why the lack of a sentinel? Why would it be especially important that she herself not see or interact with whoever it may be? It seemed to her the most dangerous individual now inhabiting Heven who actually should be in a secure cell within the dungeon walls now rested restrained within the palace itself due to this prisoner's presence. It made no sense.</p><p>She hadn't lied to Loki, she did trust him, or at least she trusted that his intentions were good. However, she couldn't help but recall that it was Loki who had unknowingly brought Loriel back to Heven disguised as one of the refugees of Tartarus, that it was Loki who had procured the stone from which Hela had been reborn, that it was Loki that had sought out Steinn and brought him there. It had been Loki years previous who had secretly pilfered the Tesseract from Odin's vault leading to Thanos tracking the Statesman and slaughtering nearly half of those who had survived Asgard's destruction. He had not intended any of those things to happen, yet they were the direct result of his actions. Could whoever sat now in the dungeon present yet another danger that Loki was blind to and had introduced into their midst?</p><p>Though she hated the idea of disobeying his directives and breaching his trust, she was the Queen of this realm and she had a responsibility to protect it, a responsibility she now felt she had failed to uphold, the many bodies that had been left in Hela's wake proof of the fact. She made her way to the steps and descended them into the courtyard.</p><p>Loki's past self lying on the bunk in his cell turned his head from where he had been staring glumly at the ceiling at the sound of someone entering the dungeon. He rose expectantly. He was surprised at the sight of the woman that now stood before him as if frozen in place. Recalling Loki's statement about it being particularly important this prisoner not see her personally, Sigyn had taken on the guise of one of the many female angelic palace attendants. She now stared at Loki wide eyed in shocked silence.</p><p>"And who might you be? Has my 'elder brother' sent me a new friend to serve as a balm, to keep me company in my captivity?" Loki asked, Sigyn clearly not the person he had expected.</p><p>"I'm...I'm just a servant. I was sent to insure that all is well with you." Sigyn lied.</p><p>"All is not well. I offered my help only to find myself once again caged for hours. How much longer am I to remain here?" Loki said, obviously perturbed.</p><p>"I don't know." Sigyn answered honestly.</p><p>"Well that is certainly enlightening. It was bad enough to be left with only my thoughts to entertain me, now I must endure the presence of a dull witted servant. I'm beginning to suspect this has all been a ruse. Odin sent another disguised as myself after that oaf Thor's spectacular failure to con me into giving myself up. A treasure greater than the Tesseract...How could I have been such a fool. I suppose I will soon find myself brought before him."</p><p>"Odin is-" Sigyn began before stopping herself. "This isn't Asgard."</p><p>"I thought the dungeons looked different, but then if it were the future... it has been some time since I last saw them. I avoid such disgusting places populated by such pathetic, low creatures. If this isn't Asgard, where is it I find myself?" Loki asked, confused.</p><p>"You don't know? He didn't tell you?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"I haven't a clue. I was brought directly here by my future self, as he claimed to be. I was told my help was needed to rescue a son I don't have. Why I would ever saddle myself with such baggage as a mewling child..." </p><p>"You're on Heven." Sigyn answered. Loki looked at her, silent for a moment, in shock.</p><p>"Heven? The tenth realm? How could that be? They were defeated, cast out, isolated from the other realms by the Allfather long ago. I was just a boy then. Is that what this is? I'm now a prisoner of Heven to be ransomed? I hate to disappoint you, but Odin is unlikely to lift a finger for my release. He bears no love for me. I'm quite sure he'd be content to let me rot." Loki said with disdain.</p><p>"That's not true." Sigyn said. Loki looked to Sigyn with annoyance.</p><p>"And what would a simple minded trollop such as yourself know of it?" Loki asked, irritated.</p><p>"I know that your father-"</p><p>"He's not my father!" Loki exploded. Sigyn, in shock at his outburst stepped back from the cell. Loki, noticing her reaction appeared to calm somewhat. "I was adopted. I only learned recently I had been lied to my entire life not long before I was tossed from the Bifrost like refuse, sent into the void to die...merely because I desired to be treated as the equal of my brother, Odin's 'golden boy.'" Loki looked to Sigyn, annoyed. "Why am I sharing all this with you? It's not as if you care."</p><p>"I do care." Sigyn said.</p><p>"Why would you? I'm nothing to you." Loki said as he turned away from Sigyn, staring at the bare wall on the other side of the cell. "I'm nothing to anyone, I was only ever a convenient pawn in Odin's schemes."</p><p>"What about your mother?" Sigyn asked. Loki turned his head to look at Sigyn curiously.</p><p>"What do you know of my mother...or I suppose she who put on the pretense of being such. She may have perhaps been the sole exception...though she too played along with Odin's ruse all these centuries, kept the truth hidden from me."</p><p>"What you were told is true. This is what would be considered your future. You, or at least the future you is father to a son. His name is Leiffrid. You're not a hostage." Sigyn informed the brooding Loki.</p><p>"Oh! So you say. You could have fooled me. Is this how you typically treat your guests on Heven? Forgive my impatience, but I wish only to retrieve the brat and collect this treasure, if it even exists, and return from whence I came. I have an army waiting and a world to rule."</p><p>"You mean Midgard." Sigyn said.</p><p>"Ignorant mortals slaughter each other in droves and over such trivial matters. My witless brother claims it under his protection but does nothing. I mean to put a stop to it. They don't realize how much they need me to be set above them to put things to rights, but they will soon come to appreciate me." Loki said haughtily.</p><p>"You mean to love you?" Sigyn said. Loki glanced at her, taken aback by her question.</p><p>"Love..." Loki repeated the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth, "I have found it to be a useless sentiment. It proves only to make one weak. I care not if they love me, only that they obey."</p><p>"So you would make them slaves?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Freedom is life's great lie. Once they accept that, they will know peace."</p><p>"Do you not think they must choose the path of peace for themselves?"</p><p>"I thought you said you were a servant. You sound more like a diplomat." Loki said to her.</p><p>"My father was."</p><p>"A completely useless profession. The only thing people truly listen to is power. I will show Thor and Odin both what it is to be a true King." Loki said with a scowl.</p><p>Sigyn looked to Loki in silence for a moment, at his stony, cold expression. Her heart ached for the suffering man she knew lay hidden deep under the proverbial mask he wore that she could see reflected in his eyes despite what she knew was his best attempts to veil it. Loki also studied her for a moment during their shared silence. His expression suddenly softened slightly.</p><p>"Have we met before? You seem familiar. I mean myself, you are of course acquainted with my future self. If you speak truth, it would have to have been years ago..." Loki asked. Sigyn quickly shook her head.</p><p>"No. I must go now." Sigyn swiftly turned to leave.</p><p>"So soon? I was beginning to enjoy our little talk." Loki said, though he had done the majority of the talking.</p><p>"I have duties to attend to." Sigyn told him. "I'm sure you will not be here much longer." Sigyn assured him as she moved at a rapid pace towards the dungeon's doors. Loki watched her until she was out of sight. Hearing the sound of the doors open and then close, he returned to the bunk and laid down upon it once again, returning his gaze to the ceiling, contemplating the strange feeling of familiarity that had come over him related to his visitor.</p><p>Loki and The Ancient One appeared before Loki's cell only minutes after Sigyn had made her exit. Loki released his hold on The Ancient One's arm. She looked around her then into the cell before her. The man within it stood from the bunk once again, moving towards the force field and the two that stood before it.</p><p>"It's about time." Loki's past self glowered.</p><p>"My apologies. There was a circumstance I had to attend to I had not foreseen."</p><p>"And who is she?" Loki asked, looking over the woman standing beside his double.</p><p>"She is to be our guide. She will show us the way-" Loki answered before he felt a hand take hold of his tunic from behind just before he vanished in a pink-violet light. The Ancient One looked to the now empty space beside her then back to Loki within the cell.</p><p>"It appears there has been another delay." The Ancient One said.</p><p>Loki found himself in the courtyard outside the dungeon's entrance. Confused for a moment, he turned to see Sigyn standing before him, her arms crossed in front of her bearing a look of alarm and displeasure.</p><p>"Why is he here? What are you planning to do with him?" she asked him.</p><p>"What is necessary to return our son to us. Why did you not listen to me? I was only trying to protect you."</p><p>"Oh, and you've been doing a marvelous job of that!" Sigyn retorted. Loki, hurt by her words, hung his head.  Sigyn hung her own in shame at her outburst, "I'm sorry.  I guess he started to rub off on me."</p><p>"I did not wish you to see the vile creature I once was. I wanted to save you that pain. It was enough that you know of my past. I also need him just the way I was then. If your presence were to have broken Frigga's spell, were he to have recognized you..." Loki asked, himself obviously displeased.</p><p>"Why would that matter? Would it not be better if he did? Would it not bring his suffering to an end...or at least a great measure of it?"</p><p>"To enter the gate into Hel, one must be filled with darkness...knowing only hatred...anger..." Loki answered.</p><p>"Well he is certainly all those things." Sigyn said. "And what of after? Do you plan to just return him back to Midgard to wreak havoc upon its people as you once did?"</p><p>"No...he won't be returning at all, here or there." Loki said. Sigyn looked puzzled and concerned.</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"Once he has located Leiffrid, he will bring him back to the gate. Only those who bear the opposite traits can pass back through it. Leiffrid will of course be capable..." Loki explained. Sigyn looked upon Loki with shock.</p><p>"You mean he will find himself trapped there? How could you even consider such a thing!" Sigyn asked in disbelief.</p><p>"I see no other alternative if we wish to see our son again."</p><p>"He is still you, despite the darkness! I know from whence it comes, I know deep down inside him is the boy who was my best and dearest friend and the man I love! And what of me?  The other me?  If he does not return I will never find him again! Loriel will remain on the throne of Heven and the people here will continue to suffer under her rule. There will be no Leiffrid, no Frigga. Whether I fall at the hands of the angels or someday millennia from now die alone in my bed on the island as I once believed I would, I will find myself in Valhalla and we will never see each other again even there as he will be trapped in Hel for all eternity! Would you do that to me? The people in that timeline have feelings just as we do. They are just as real, just as alive as we are!" Sigyn exclaimed, tears in her eyes. "Besides, the chickens always come home to roost as the saying goes. Did Steinn not already make that lesson clear enough?  What if someday he discovers a way out of his prison, a way to escape Hel...Loriel did so as did Hela once. He would have every reason to seek you out and have his vengeance upon you, and likely all you hold dear." Loki appeared thoughtful as he hung his head mournfully.</p><p>"Don't think those things have not also crossed my mind. If I knew of another way...if you have any other ideas..." said Loki. Sigyn stood silent and thoughtful for a moment.</p><p>"You promised him a treasure..."</p><p>"Merely a ruse. One I knew had the greatest chance of success knowing myself as I was then." Loki responded.</p><p>"There is a treasure, at least I hope you see it as such.  One that once discovered would allow him passage back through the gate. Once he finds him, he need only look into Leiffrid's mind to find it."</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Forgive my unexpected exit. A...family matter." Loki told the Ancient One as he rejoined her in the dungeon after stepping out of the cylinder's light. Loki's past self within the cell before them broke into a wide grin.</p><p>"Trouble in paradise? Have you run afoul of the missus? So what has earned you her displeasure? Did you leave the toilet seat up?" Loki from the past asked his future self. The Ancient one, though generally stoic, could not help but display a slight grin at the jest.</p><p>"It happens to be none of your business." Loki told his past self.</p><p>"How is it that my own life, granted a future one, would not be my business? It's a shame I was unable to catch a glimpse of my 'better half.' I'm curious." Loki within the cell said, continuing to grin mischievously.</p><p>"It's better that you did not." Loki responded.</p><p>"Why? Is she ugly?  Have I really sunk so low as to pair myself with a hideous shrew?" Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"Have care how you speak of her." Loki warned, disgruntled.</p><p>"She is! What cataclysmic event could have possibly led me to such desperation? Did half the population of the universe suddenly just disappear? Perhaps Thor's new friends on Midgard should recruit her to their cause. It seems she has single handedly reduced me to a milksop."</p><p>"That would be far more pleasant than what the beast has in store for you, trust me. For your information, my wife and mother of my children is quite beautiful, her outward beauty eclipsed only by that of her heart. I am undeserving of her. Conversing with you serves only to further drive home the point." Loki told his past self as he fought the desire to wring his own neck.</p><p>"Children? So it's not just the one but a passel of whining urchins? Is this really what I am to be reduced to?"</p><p>"Your chances of living long enough to find out lessen with each passing second you continue to speak." Loki told him.</p><p>"And each passing second is another second your son remains in Hel." The Ancient One reminded Loki. Loki approached the controls to the cell's force field, giving his past self a stern look.</p><p>"Same as before." he commanded his double.</p><p>"How am I to rescue anyone in shackles? You still don't trust me? Left to my own devices for hours and I made not a single attempt at escape. It's not as if I couldn't have done so...quite easily, actually...tracked down this supposedly ravishing wife of mine to keep me occupied during my long wait...perhaps left her with a parting gift of sorts in substitution of the one you seem to have misplaced..."</p><p>"You chafe at shackles...what are your feelings in regards to gags?" Loki asked. "I know well you could not have escaped this cell. Turn around." Loki commanded. His past self rolled his eyes as he obeyed. 'Strange and Stark were right,' Loki thought to himself, recalling how each had at separate times, Stark in a vision, referred to him with the Midgardian pejorative of 'douchebag.' It was of course not an Asgardian term, but one he well knew the meaning of nonetheless.  Loki deactivated the cell and quickly shackled the version of him within.  As his past self turned back around  to face his future self, he was met with Loki's fist making contact with his jaw, knocking him back. Gaining his footing he glared back at his double.</p><p>"I agree to help you and this is how I'm treated?"</p><p>"You'll find your treatment will vastly improve if you shut up." Loki informed him. He stepped forward, grabbing his past self's arm, leading him out of the cell to join The Ancient One. "We must all have hold of each other." Loki said as he produced the modified cylinder.</p><p>"And how am I do do that?" Loki's past self asked. Loki linked his arm with his, The Ancient One taking hold of Loki's other arm. All three disappeared from the dungeon in the glow of the cylinder's light.</p><p>Sigyn heard the piercing screams and cries of her infant daughter down the corridor leading to the royal chambers before she'd yet reached the doors. The sentinel before it opened a door as she approached. Sigyn wondered how he could so stoically stand undisturbed by it. Sariah stood in the great room, the baby Frigga in her arms, a helpless expression on her face as she tried to soothe the child.</p><p>"I have tried everything. She is usually so happy." Sariah said as she passed Frigga to Sigyn. She quieted somewhat, continuing to sniffle, laying her head on Sigyn's shoulder.</p><p>"I think she's beginning to realize something is amiss. Thank you, Sariah. I'm sorry she gave you such grief."</p><p>"It is quite alright. I know they will return to us soon." Sariah said before exiting. As she did, Mariel entered.</p><p>"My Queen..." Mariel said, Sigyn turning towards her.</p><p>"You have news of Steinn?"</p><p>"He has not yet awakened, but I believe I have made progress. His grief and pain are deep and many layered."</p><p>"I'm sure they are. It was the same for myself. There are still times, things that cause me to think of them and I must remind myself those days are in the past. I need not look back or dwell on them. He however carries a physical, visible reminder every second of every day."</p><p>Mariel took notice of Frigga's red, puffy eyes and the tears in them along with the sound of her sniffles, though she was calming in her mother's arms.</p><p>"Our princess is unhappy? That is most unusual." Mariel stated as she neared Sigyn and reached, out, wiping away a tear from Frigga's cheek as she caressed it.</p><p>"I'm afraid so. She's become quite a daddy's girl and he has been away from her for too long. Her mother is feeling no more pleased with the situation. There was a time when I would have been fighting by his side."</p><p>"A mother is the fiercest warrior that exists. Those days will come again. Children do not stay young forever." Mariel reassured Sigyn.</p><p>"I don't know anymore...who and what do I put first? Heven? The children? Loki? I'm only one person...unlike some." Sigyn added, thinking of her discovery of Loki's past self in the dungeon.</p><p>"Your children, always." Mariel said.</p><p>"I believed so as well, but then after Hela...so many here depend on me."</p><p>"We are capable of looking after ourselves, your children are not. You gave them life. Your responsibility to them must come first."</p><p>"I know you're right." Sigyn replied.</p><p>"I go now to rest. I will return to Steinn after." Mariel said. Sigyn noticed that Mariel both appeared and sounded fatigued.</p><p>"Take all the time that you need. There's no rush. He certainly isn't going anywhere." Sigyn told her. Mariel bowed her head before making her way to the doors and exiting, Sigyn now finding herself alone with Frigga. She walked to the window, peering out of it over the city then to the child in her arms who now lay with eyes closed, silently sleeping.</p><p>Loki, his past self, and The Ancient One traversed the rocky, mountainous terrain of Nifleheim, The Ancient One leading them along a pathway as thick mist hung in the chilly air. Loki could recall having visited the nearly dead world only once while a boy when his father had taken him and Thor on a sort of tour of the realms. it was populated with only a few giants,not in the form of Jotuns, but those whose appearance were much more like those of Asgard, Vanaheim, and Midgard, only far larger. They were a solitary people who had little contact with those outside their own realm, or even their own settlement in most cases. He was quite sure even if their presence were to be noticed, they would remain unmolested by them, especially in this part of Nifleheim near the gate of that part of the realm that all feared and avoided at any cost. The gate's safeguards, as explained by both Steinn and The Ancient One would preclude any real danger, to most anyway, yet the mere idea of the place was a deterrent.</p><p>"It is there." The Ancient One said, coming to a stop on the pathway, raising her arm and pointing towards what looked to be a naturally formed archway of stone.</p><p>"Are you certain? You have said you yourself have never visited this place."</p><p>"Not in my physical body, no. but I have made many journeys throughout the universe in my astral form to locations of great significance." The Ancient One said, beginning along the pathway again towards the archway, Loki and his past self once again following.</p><p>The three reached the archway, standing before it. The pathway appeared to continue through it extending into a similar landscape to what was behind them that they had just traveled through. The Ancient one put her palm out, extending her arm. Both Lokis watched as a dark misty curtain appeared to fall within the archway. The Ancient One turned to Loki.</p><p>"You and I can go no further. The time has come to learn if the person you once were is able to do so." she informed Loki. Loki turned to his double.</p><p>"The location of the treasure I have promised you is within Leiffrid's mind. When you locate him, you must look there to find it."</p><p>"You would entrust such knowledge to a mere boy?" Loki asked, confounded.</p><p>"I of course know of it but if I were to share it with you now, you would not be able to cross into Hel. It is why I am unable to do so and sought your aide. I did not possess this treasure until a few years ago, long after my attempt to rule the people of Midgard." Loki paused for a moment as he witnessed his past self staring uncertainly into the gateway. "I have a confession to make. My original plan if successful would have returned my son to me but left you unable to return, trapped in Hel for eternity. I detest the man I once was, the man you are."  Loki told him.</p><p>"That much is obvious."  Loki's past self said, rubbing his still smarting jaw.  </p><p> "It was the intercession of another that has saved you from that fate."</p><p>"Who?" The past Loki asked, bewildered. Loki unshackled him, he bringing his hands from behind his back, free from the restraints.</p><p>"I cannot say. Go now, find my son and return him to me.  The answer to your question lies within him as well."</p><p>Loki's past self stepped towards the gateway uncertainly. He put out his hand as The Ancient One did. It passed through the dark, misty curtain, disappearing within it. The Loki of the past then stepped the rest of the way through, vanishing into the darkness.</p><p>Loki's past self emerged on the other side of the gateway. He looked behind him to see the archway just as it appeared on the other side. He could see the same path they had traversed to reach it, yet no sign of the two that had accompanied him there. He turned to look ahead of him and began to walk, scanning the ground and his surroundings.</p><p>The landscape was similar to what lay on the opposite side of the gate with the exception that all was completely devoid of color except for various shades of gray. A mist hung in the air, chilling him even more than it had on the opposite side of the gate. He wrapped his arms around himself against the chill and continued on. Looking down he soon spotted the small footprints in the gray dust that covered the ground.</p><p>Frigga, Leiffrid's head once again lying in her lap, raised her head and looked towards the entrance to their shelter. Gently shaking Leiffrid's shoulder she roused him. Drowsily he sat up, rubbing his eyes.</p><p>"It is time to awaken. Your father comes for you." Frigga informed the boy. He looked in the same direction as Frigga.</p><p>"Where is he? I don't see him"</p><p>"It will take him some time to find you. You must remain here until he does so. I must soon leave you, but I will stay with you until he grows nearer."</p><p>"But how will he find me?"</p><p>"When you are playing at the hiding game, does he not always find you?" Frigga asked.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"There is something you can do to help him along. I will show you how it may be done. Do you remember the light I said was inside of you? I am going to teach you how to make it shine even brighter for him to see. The only trouble is the others out there will see it too. They will also come for you. I will not be able to help you when they do as I will be gone. They will try to take your light, your energy. You must resist them."</p><p>"How do I do that?"</p><p>"Before I go, I will teach you that as well."</p><p>Loki continued to follow the small footprints as they neared a rough, rock wall. At the bottom of the wall, Loki noticed an object lying on the ground, it's gray, matted fur now covered in dust of the same color. Coming upon it, he reached down, picking up a small stuffed wolf. Looking to the wall, he magically stowed the wolf away and reached out, searching for hand and foot holds in order to make his way up it as he was sure the object of his search had done and began to climb towards the top where it flattened into a ledge wide enough to be used as a walkway.</p><p>Reaching the top of the wall, now finding himself covered in the same gray dust that seemed to coat everything, he pulled himself over and stood, attempting to brush it off of his clothing. He was startled to hear a deep toned female voice break through the silence that had surrounded him since his entrance.</p><p>"I had a feeling I would find you here, brother."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You must be Hela," Loki said to Hela, who stood before him, blocking his path. Loki seemed not the least bit anxious or concerned about her presence. The first born of Odin looked the worse for wear, her clothing torn in various places, her hair tangled and unruly. Hela looked to Loki, confused.</p><p>"Of course I'm Hela! Your sister? The Goddess of Death...Odin's first born?" Hela exclaimed.</p><p>"The only thing you seem to be the Goddess of at the moment is being in my way. If you'd kindly step aside..."</p><p>"You have no fear of me?"</p><p>"Not particularly. I do not fear the dead."</p><p>"Dead? You fool, I'm not-" Hela spoke as Loki, having lost what little patience he had remaining, advanced along the path and passed through her. She looked down at herself in horror. "dead...No!!!!!" Loki heard her shriek as he continued on his way.</p><p>Though Loki had no reason to fear Hela, he knew that Hel was not populated only with the non-corporeal who could do him no harm, but also the shadowy figures he had caught glimpses of as he made his trek through the rocky, gray landscape. Those he knew could most definitely do him harm. He sensed their presence, their interest in him, their desire to possess him, to draw upon his energy to strengthen themselves.</p><p>Though those in corporeal form that became trapped in Hel could not die, they could be rendered as good as dead, their energy drained, their bodies left defenseless and open to becoming a vessel for them. He wondered how a young child could possibly have any hope of avoiding that fate and what he would find when and if he were able to locate Leiffrid. He could very well be bringing a demon possessed child back to his future self to raise, but as long as the treasure was forthcoming upon his retrieval of the boy, it was not his problem...well, technically it was, but not his.</p><p>As Loki's journey continued, as he followed Leiffrid's footprints over various rocky obstacles, along narrow pathways, up and over sloping, stony hillsides, he glimpsed these shadowy shapes blink into his peripheral view, waver, then fade, only for another, or multiple others to appear on his other side, or both sides, doing the same. Occasionally he would catch sight of who appeared to be those he knew from his past and present...Odin, Thor, Sif, along with other Asgardians. At one point he was sure he had seen the hulking, purple form of Thanos. His heart nearly dropped to his feet as he stopped dead in his tracks and turned his head only to find the space once occupied by the Titan empty. Disconcerted, he continued on.</p><p>The footprints he tracked gave evidence that Leiffrid had endured similar experiences, indicating a walking pace followed by that of a sprint. It was clear the child had no idea where he was going as he naturally wouldn't, the only thing he could think to do was to keep moving, to attempt to put as much distance between himself and the creatures as he could. Even at his young age, Loki perceived that the boy sensed their darkness and danger, that they were to be avoided.</p><p>Loki approached a hill sloping upwards that appeared to be covered with jagged stones jutting out in various places, littered with shale like debris and the requisite thick gray dust. Large rounded stones dotted the hillside, not quite the size of boulders, that were perched precariously upon the shifting detritus. Leiffrid's small stature and slight weight had allowed him to scale it with a minimum of difficulty, though Loki could see where his feet had slipped out from under him in places as he tracked his progression through his footprints. Following the boy's trail, he began to ascend the same path.</p><p>As Loki made his way up, the ground beneath him seemed to become progressively more unstable, slippery, the shale like flecks and rocks sliding and shifting under his weight. He assumed more of a crawling stance, his hands searching for larger rocks and small outcroppings to grip as he pushed his body upwards with the strength of his legs. He reached out, taking hold of what looked to be a usable hand hold in the uneven surface of a large stone. Immediately he knew it to have been a mistake as the stone began to slide and then roll. Loki, in an attempt to avoid it, lost his footing and balance, finding himself sliding and rolling down the incline as well, his head painfully making contact with a few of the larger stones, his movement triggering a mini landslide of additional rocks and large stones, some of which rolled over him as he pressed himself as flat as possible to slow and halt his descent.</p><p>He lay still for a few moments, holding his breath, then as he took in air once again, coughed as his lungs took in the copious dust that had been raised. Training his eyes upwards to the top of the slope he once again began to determinedly pull himself back up, reaching out with one arm and pushing off with one foot, and then the other. His mind was now focused on nothing more than defeating the obstacle.</p><p>Loki had little noticed the fact that as his trek and his search went on, he thought less and less about the treasure he had been promised as well as his plans for after he had acquired it, the continuance of his scheme on Midgard once he was returned to his own time, his mind focused more completely on his current mission. Counter intuitively with the dark nature of the place he now inhabited, the darkness that flowed through him seemed to slowly be lifting. Finally reaching the top of the slope and pulling himself onto the flatter ground atop it, he struggled to his feet, searching for and once again picking up Leiffrid's trail.</p><p>Looking into the distance to ascertain what other obstacles he would soon encounter he saw it...a faint white glow cutting through the haze and mist. Attempting to focus his vision more acutely he made out what appeared to be another sloping hill topped with a rocky outcropping from which the glow originated. It appeared to be a beacon of some sort and Loki was drawn to it. He looked down at Leiffrid's prints in the dust heading in the same direction.</p><p>Loki of the present day paced anxiously on the pathway before the archway that served as the gate into Hel. The Ancient One had found a seat on a long, flat section of rock along one side of the pathway. She had watched Loki for a time before her voice broke the silence.</p><p>"You will exhaust yourself. Our wait may be long." she told him. Loki, taking the hint, found another rock with a flatter top on which to seat himself across the path from The Ancient One.</p><p>"It has just occurred to me that I don't know your name.  You were referred to by others only as The Ancient One." Loki said to the woman.</p><p>"It has been a very long time since I have gone by my given name. There is no one still living that knows it. I have been known only as The Ancient One for centuries, though it is a bit ironic considering I now sit across from one that is more than twice my age.  For that reason and for the fact that after this day we will never again cross paths, I will share it with you and my story...if I have your word that it will be shared with no one."</p><p>"You have it." Loki replied.</p><p>"Moira. I am of Celtic origin. I became quite ill as a young woman. I had been known for my long, beautiful hair. It had been a source of great pride.  As my illness progressed, it fell out. No one knew what it was that ailed me. None of our healers were able to help me. It was believed I would die.  My father traveled far in an attempt to find a cure. One day he came across a traveler from a far off land who told him of Kamar-Taj. It was a long journey. Few believed I would survive it. There I learned how to cure myself. I decided to stay on and learn more. I never returned home. I have since dedicated my life to doing the same for others, helping them to cure themselves not just of ailments of the body but of the heart and the mind."</p><p>"How is it that you have lived so long as a mortal?" </p><p>"My studies led me to learn many secrets, one of which has allowed me to extend my life in order to do what I can to protect the people of Earth.  There are many dangers in the universe as you well know, and not just this universe." </p><p>"You said that you were cured, yet your hair did not return?  I mean no offense, I'm curious as it is unusual for the women of Midgard."</p><p>"I am not so easily offended.  I chose not to allow it as a reminder of how precious is life and how close I had come to losing my own as well as to avoid the vanity and pride with which I had once enslaved myself."</p><p>"I know of one who is in need of healing. He could greatly benefit from such knowledge."</p><p>"Kamar-Taj welcomes all who wish to learn and be healed."</p><p>At last Loki had reached the foot of the slope atop which the glow that drew him emanated. As he began to ascend it he felt a heaviness descend, As he watched, the dark, shadowy creatures that had once appeared for only moments at a time and only in his periphery took shape around him, though they seemed to be ignoring him, all also making their way upwards. He looked behind him to see more making their way towards the slope to join the others. It was then that he saw the shadowy shapes begin to take on features reflecting their true natures. Loki looked on in horror as they began to transform into creatures of nightmare...pale skinned, their eyes black, their hands claw like. He knew they were being drawn to the light as he had, as moths to a flame and he also somehow instinctively knew from whence the light came. Hurriedly, he began to scramble up the slope.</p><p>"Leiffrid!" Loki called as loudly as he could as he fought his way upwards, slipping and sliding, much as Leiffrid himself had, on the loose rocks and shale like flecks, fighting to keep from sliding back down and negating his progress.</p><p>"Father?!" Loki heard the young boy's voice from above.</p><p>Loki watched as the demonic entities reached the top of the slope far before him and disappeared over the top out of his view. Frantic, Loki continued to struggle to reach the top of the slope. More of the creatures had reached the top when suddenly he felt the ground beneath him begin to vibrate, rocks and gray dirt and dust and shale like flecks slid down the hillside past him as a blast of energy was hurled out from the top of the slope. Dark, demonic creatures caught in the blast were thrown back, hurtling through the air. Those still making their way up the hill beside Loki were also thrown back, rolling down the hillside. Loki, lying flat against the ground remained still for a moment before scrambling the last few feet to the top of the slope and pulling himself up onto the flat ground atop it.</p><p>Loki rested for a moment, lying prone, before raising his head. A few feet away, standing alone, covered in the same gray dust as Loki stood a young boy that Loki could have mistaken for a mirror image of himself at the same age. Loki had risen to his knees as the boy ran to him.</p><p>"Father!" Leiffrid cried. Reaching Loki, he threw his arms around him. Loki held out one hand, putting the other around the boy and produced the stuffed wolf. "Wolfie! You found him!" Leiffrid exclaimed, taking hold of the toy animal and holding it close to him with one arm as he clung to Loki with the other. The hand that had held the wolf now empty, Loki placed the palm of it to Leiffrid's forehead.</p><p>Leiffrid's memories, those he had amassed in his short lifetime, rushed into Loki's brain in a deluge. Images of himself, his future self, as well as the boy's mother flashed before him, his mind absorbing them, processing them. His future self had not done the mother of his children justice, Loki thought. She was more than beautiful, she was breathtaking, she was... Loki removed his hand from Leiffrid's forehead and put it to his own, grimacing as he grew dizzy and a sharp pain shot through his head. Losing his balance, Loki put his other hand out to the ground as he collapsed into a sitting position.. A new deluge of memories overcame Loki, as if a dam had burst, but these he knew came from deep within his own mind</p><p>"Father? What's wrong? Are you alright?" Leiffid asked, worried. Loki slowly opened his eyes, tears welling within them, as he moved his hand from his head to his mouth, looking upon Leiffrid as if in shock. After a moment, Loki rose to his feet, extending his hand to the boy.</p><p>"Come. We must return you home to your mother."</p><p>The Ancient One remained seated on the stone, now in a meditative position, her eyes closed. Loki sat silently across from her deep in his own thoughts. The woman opened her eyes, looking across the pathway to Loki.</p><p>"Your son has been found. They approach the gate. I fear the child may be a bit confused…." The Ancient One said to Loki.</p><p>"I suppose he would be." Loki said as before her eyes, Loki transformed into the form of his brother.</p><p>Out from under the stone archway, the dark, misty curtain having descended once again, Loki's past self and Leiffrid appeared. Loki, in the guise of Thor, had to restrain himself from rushing to the boy but could not contain the joyous grin that spread across his face.</p><p>"Uncle Thor!" Leiffrid said in surprise as he caught sight of who he believed to be his uncle. Loki fell to one knee, opening his arms to his son as the boy ran into them. "I lost Wolfie but father found him."</p><p>"I am far more pleased that he found you." Loki said in Thor's voice. Loki rose, putting a hand onto Leiffrid's shoulder. Loki's past self appeared confused for a moment at the sight of his brother, then noticed him wink, quickly ascertaining the ruse. Loki looked upon his past self and the lingering shock that was still etched across his face. "Let us leave this place."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki and The Ancient One appeared within Kamar-Taj once again at the exact moment they had previously left as she had requested and Loki knew was necessary. Stepping away from Loki, The Ancient One wordlessly returned to the mat and sat once again, preparing to return to her meditation.</p><p>"I am and will remain eternally grateful to you, though that seems a paltry reward for your assistance." Loki told her.</p><p>"That is more than adequate, especially coming from one such as yourself, one who was once grateful for so little." she replied. "You are proof that there is hope for anyone, including your friend. If he be willing, bring him here.  I must now prepare for my next visitor. He may present me with one of my greatest challenges, but perhaps in the end also the greatest reward." The Ancient One looked towards the doorway to her left as both she and Loki heard the sound of the front door opening and closing and approaching voices, one a familiar one to Loki. "He has arrived."</p><p>"Strange?" Loki said in surprise.</p><p>"Yes. Dr. Stephen Strange. You know him?" The Ancient One asked Loki.</p><p>"Not yet." Loki responded.</p><p>"An unfortunate case. He was once a quite talented physician. His accident cost him the use of his hands and thus his livelihood. More than that, his identity. He has floundered in anger, fear and despair since, just as you once did." The Ancient One rose from the mat where she had been seated. "If you will excuse me." she said as she made her way to the door and exited the room.</p><p>Loki, curious, quietly made his way to the doorway The Ancient One had just passed through and rendering himself invisible, stepped through it. In the large room a man stood, speaking with another dark skinned man. Loki hardly recognized the unkempt man with the confused, uncertain air who stood there as two approached him and removed his coat, another handing him a cup of tea. Loki crossed back through the doorway into the empty room and rendering himself visible, produced the modified cylinder, disappearing once again.</p><p>Loki stood in the doorway of his and Sigyn's bedchambers, his eyes resting on the sleeping woman and the young boy nestled beside her that she held wrapped in her arms. He wanted more than anything to join them. There was more to do however before he could put a period on the whole affair, though he felt the effects of physical and mental fatigue beginning to creep over him, not to mention the emotional toll that he knew he had little dealt with thus far out of necessity.  Keeping his feelings in check had been a requirement of effectively and successfully dealing with the situation.</p><p>Loki descended the balcony steps into the courtyard of the palace, surprised in the darkness of the night to see Mariel seated at the foot of the memorial to her sister, her knees drawn up under the long, flowing skirt of her gown, her elbows resting on her knees, holding her head in her hands.</p><p>"Mariel? Is everything alright?" Loki asked her, concerned. She slowly looked up at Loki, the look in her eyes answering his question.</p><p>"I have been with Steinn...I could remain no longer...I needed to clear my head." Mariel said then looked down, away from Loki.</p><p>"Sigyn told me you were attempting to help him. How is he?"</p><p>"He is slowly coming out of it. There are indications he will awaken soon, but there is still much pain and suffering I have been unable to ease. I have assisted many in my lifetime with their pain, their grief, their suffering, but his is perhaps the deepest, the most difficult to assuage. It is as if who he is now is a physical manifestation of it."</p><p>"I suppose that he is." Loki replied, his voice tinged with guilt and sadness.</p><p>"It is not only that. I find myself identifying with him in some ways, which makes it more difficult, to not allow myself to be pulled down with him as I attempt to lift him up." Mariel said, Loki looking to her puzzled by her statement.</p><p>"What do you mean?' Loki asked before seating himself beside her. He could not fathom in what way Mariel could possibly identify with the man who had attempted to take his life, who was full of such hatred and anger. He had never heard Mariel so much as raise her voice in displeasure in all the years he had now known her. He had noticed sadness in her eyes in the past, quick glimpses of it before it would just as quickly be gone and would wonder from whence it came, but never the depth of darkness that had overtaken Steinn.</p><p>"He once cared for you very much. He suffered knowing that you did not feel the same."</p><p>"It was not him alone that found that to be so. My heart was walled in by its own suffering. Even when I wished to let someone into it, when I knew that I needed to, that I should, I found I could not. I'm afraid I still don't understand how you-" Loki began before Mariel turned her eyes to him. He saw in them the same sadness he had glimpsed in the past. She hung her head once again.</p><p>"I thought over time my feelings would fade. I have many times considered resigning my position, leaving the Queen's and your service. Being in her presence, it often feels like a betrayal. And yet I know to do so would change nothing. Even if you were free, it would not be possible...my calling...you would never have me and there are so few of us, I am needed. As you know, we are not forced, it is who and what I am." Mariel explained. Loki sat beside her in silence. How could he have been so blind as not to have noticed? But then, for a time he had kept his distance, recalling the circumstances under which they'd met and his lingering discomfort in her presence due to that fact and he also had come to know Mariel to be an excellent actress. For her to have so expertly disguised it was not at all surprising. He had several times without success attempted to persuade her to take the stage in various large and small productions he had written or sponsored. Now he knew the true cause of her reticence.</p><p>He thought back to all the moments in his and Sigyn's life that she had been present for. She had been present for the births of both of their children, by Sigyn's side throughout, easing her pain and the first to swaddle them and place them into Sigyn's arms. Loki thought now how difficult that must have been for her, the conflict of emotions between her feelings for him and those of her dedication and friendship with Sigyn. It made him think also of Sif and her unrequited feelings for his brother and how it had led her out into the universe to escape them, though he knew well that she never really had.</p><p>"Have you felt this way before, about anyone else?" Loki asked.</p><p>"I have cared deeply for many, I care about everyone...I have loved others in the past, but no...it was never the same, not in the same way." Mariel answered.</p><p>"I am surprised knowing what you now know of me, what I am sure you have learned from Steinn, that the issue has not resolved itself."</p><p>"On the contrary, that has only deepened my feelings. To know who you once were, so lost and afraid, filled with darkness, a man of such deep feeling who had so hardened your heart to protect it...that you were able to overcome all of that to become who you are today..." Mariel explained.</p><p>"That darkness still exists within me. I must remain ever vigilant lest it consume me again. I didn't overcome it alone, far from it. Had Sigyn not come back into my life...I shudder to think what would have become of me." Loki said, recalling the dark place in which he had been when first he had found himself back in that timeline, his memories of his future self restored to him as his essence was joined with his past self and then brought by his brother to New Asgard. He remembered the depression and loathing he had experienced when he had first witnessed the new lives of his people, living much as simple mortals lived, he believing their glory days behind them. "No one overcomes such things alone. It is one of many lessons I have learned in this life."</p><p>"I am no longer sure what I am to do, and now that you know my secret...there seems only one path for me to take, to leave this place and go my own way, and yet that feels in a way to be as much of a betrayal...but perhaps it is for the best for all of us." Mariel said sadly. A silence fell between the two, as both contemplated. Finally, Loki broke the silence.</p><p>"You must of course do what you feel is best for you. However, what if I were to tell you that such a separation need not be forever. What if it were to be more of a retreat, shall we say? There is a place...when Steinn awakens I plan to take him there if he wishes it...it is a place I learned of only recently, on Midgard. There they help others, not only with physical ailments but those of the mind and the heart. They teach people how to heal themselves. Perhaps they could help you as well." Loki told Mariel. She looked over at him.</p><p>"I suppose I could use a vacation." Mariel said, a slight smile returning to her face.</p><p>"You have more than earned it, especially after recent events.  We shall talk of it further tomorrow. It is late, you should get some rest. I know your time with Steinn has been draining, at least I always found him to be so. That's one thing that has not changed." Loki said. He rose, Mariel looking up at him. "Perhaps it may assuage you somewhat that I feel humbled to know that one such as yourself, someone I hold in the highest esteem, would feel as you do about a wretch like me. I am undeserving of such an honor." Loki extended his hand to Mariel, assisting her to her feet.  He raised her hand, kissing it. "I wish you a good night." </p><p>"I wish the same to you." Mariel answered before turning and slowly making her way towards the stairway.  Loki turned in the opposite direction, heading towards the dungeon.</p><p>Loki entered the dungeons and strolled past the empty cells. Reaching the sole one now occupied, albeit without the force field engaged, his sight fell upon his double, sitting up in the bunk, turning the page of a book. His past self glanced up from the book in his hand then back to it.</p><p>"The time has come." Loki told his past self. Loki within the cell continued to read, holding up his index finger. Loki, outside the cell, looked to his double impatiently.</p><p>"You yourself said that you know how irksome it is to begin and be unable to finish." Loki of the past said as he continued reading, sensing his future self's aggravation. "There is but one more page remaining." he said, turning the page. Loki stood silent, waiting for a few moments, then entered the cell, making his way to the bunk. His past self, finishing the page, sighed and closed the book. "Well that ending left much to be desired. I feel quite cheated."</p><p>"I don't recall what book it was I gave to you. I simply grabbed one from the shelf." Loki said, his past self handing over the tome as he stood. Loki looked down at it. "Oh, yes. Not one of his better efforts." Loki said before tossing the book down onto the bunk. He froze as he heard the gentle hum that accompanied the force field being engaged. Turning, Loki stood horrified as he looked upon his past self standing outside the cell, near the controls.</p><p>"I thought we were to look to our elders for wisdom?" Loki's past self said with a grin.</p><p>"You must know you won't get away with-" Loki began before his past self disengaged the force field.</p><p>"All in jest, brother. I couldn't resist. You must admit, you set yourself up for it. Has my mind become so addled in my old age?"</p><p>Loki crossed the cell and exited it.</p><p>"Come speak to me about being addled after Banner's beast finishes with you." Loki told him.</p><p>"That's twice you have mentioned that monster in relation to myself. Is there something you wish to tell me?"</p><p>"Depending on what choice you make, you may find out for yourself soon enough." Loki told him.</p><p>"What choice do you speak of?" Loki of the past asked.</p><p>"I must return you to the same moment in time from which we departed. Once that is done, there are two possible choices. Option A, you return to your cell and wait for your compatriots to repair the damage that I did to their transportation. I figure it will take them a few hours at least, but once accomplished they will come for you and your original plan can be carried out to its conclusion."</p><p>"You told me that my plan failed."</p><p>"It did...and in a most spectacular fashion. However, that was in this timeline. Perhaps with the delay in your rescue, even such a slight alteration as that could change the outcome. I doubt that's likely but I can't say. If it does succeed however, it's possible that the stars may never align and she will be forever lost to you." Loki told his past self, he knowing what and who his future self meant.  He had for good reason refused to tell his past self where Sigyn could be found. "Even if not, knowing her as I do, it is doubtful she would be interested in becoming the wife of a megalomaniac. Beyond that, as far as your future, I also can't say. No matter what you choose, it will be different from what was once mine."</p><p>"So what's option B?"</p><p>Chaos began to erupt on the helicarrier as the two armed agents dressed in black made their way down the corridor towards Banner's lab. Loki's escape had just recently been discovered. Fury was the epitome of his name at the moment, barking out orders and questioning how it was possible that the Asgardian could have escaped an escape proof cell and how the monitor's feed had been tampered with in order to allow it and give him a head start to wherever he was going, to do whatever it was he had it in his devious mind to do.</p><p>Bruce Banner, the other Avengers having quickly left to attempt to locate the fugitive minutes before, stood alone at the computer on the other side of the room on the helicarrier that had been converted to his lab, appearing anxious as he continued to work on locating the Tesseract. With Loki's escape, such knowledge had become even more imperative. Banner feared the fact that Loki was free and running around the craft free to do what he will.  He couldn't imagine how Loki could manage to get off the helicarrier, but then he was an alien and Banner had no idea what was within the limits of his capabilities. Thor had given them all some idea, but even he was not completely sure what tricks may be in his brother's repertoire of which he had no previous knowledge. He had after all been missing and presumed dead for quite a span of time since he had dropped from the Bifrost and could have possibly acquired new tricks and skills wherever he had been since that time. Banner looked up nervously as the two armed agents rushed into the lab and made their way to the scepter containing the Mind Stone that rested on the table where Banner had last placed it after realizing he had taken it in his hands and was under its influence, which for Banner was quite a case of playing with fire.</p><p>"Whoa, whoa...wait, fellas...what's going on?" Banner asked, walking around the computer towards them.</p><p>"We've been given orders to secure the scepter. It's likely the fugitive will attempt to retrieve it."</p><p>"Oh...that makes sense, I guess. Ok...well...once this is all over, I'm gonna need it back." Banner told them.</p><p>"Close and secure this door." One of the agents said. Banner nodded as the two agents walked to the door, the one in front carrying the scepter in his free hand, his firearm in the other. Banner followed them, closing and locking the door behind them.</p><p>"That seemed a bit too easy. That's what mortals consider a genius? I don't see how it's possible that my plan failed." the armed guard not holding the scepter said.</p><p>"It did take five of their 'mightiest heroes' along with our brother to defeat me." The agent carrying the scepter said. "I must say, though I have long ago let go of my past ambitions regarding Midgard, I am quite enjoying watching them run around like chickens with their heads cut off."</p><p>"Like what?" the other agent asked, puzzled.</p><p>"It's a mortal saying. You should get used to such things. You'll likely be hearing them quite often."</p><p>The agent carrying the scepter reached a door and looking around, seeing no one, opened it, quickly entering, the other agent entering behind him. Closing the door, the two found themselves in what appeared to be a storeroom, large crates and boxes piled almost to the ceiling. The two agents dropped their guises, transforming back into their original forms. Both Lokis looked at each other with a grin before Loki produced the modified cylinder in his free hand, his past self taking hold of his arm, and activated it.</p><p>Barton and Loki's other acolytes had been shocked to see he who they were just then preparing to rescue as he strolled onto the roof of the warehouse building that had become their current headquarters, scepter in hand, as Barton and two other men finished up repairs to the jet.</p><p>"What the hell?" Barton said, making his way towards Loki. "How did you-" Barton began to ask.</p><p>"I have my ways. It's not important. The Tesseract..."</p><p>"It's right here." Erik Selvig's voice came from behind Loki as he exited the same door Loki had onto the roof holding a silver case. "I was just told we would be leaving soon for New York. I thought you were meeting us there."</p><p>"Slight change of plans. I'll take that." Loki said, taking the case from Selvig. "Thank you."</p><p>"But what about S.H.I.E.L.D.? I thought the whole plan was to take them out so they couldn't get in the way?" Barton asked.</p><p>"I took care of them myself. They'll cause us no further difficulties." Loki told him. He turned and headed back towards the door to the roof.</p><p>"Wait! Where are you going? What's the plan?" Barton called out.</p><p>"Oh, I thought it might be nice to take a little break. Relax for a bit."</p><p>"What are you talking about? I thought we were on a schedule here." Barton said. Loki turned to him.</p><p>"According to my schedule, it's time for your afternoon nap." Loki said before quickly aiming the scepter at Barton, a bolt of blue energy shooting from it and hitting him in the chest, knocking him to the ground where he lay unconscious. Loki did the same to the other five men followed by Selvig who had watched the proceedings with his mouth agape, frozen in place. Loki turned and exited the roof knowing when they awakened, they would be free from the control of his past self and also very, very confused.</p><p>Loki met his past self at the door to the warehouse, both disguising themselves once again to appear as nondescript mortals, the scepter now appearing as a walking stick.</p><p>"You will take me to her now?" Loki from the past, asked.</p><p>"Not yet. We will wait for nightfall."</p><p>"So what do we do until then? Find a tavern? Have an ale?"</p><p>"Have you ever had Midgardian ale? No, of course you haven't.  You'd do just as well to drink your own piss-" Loki began before his past self cut him off looking over to him with an expression of repulsion.</p><p>"That's disgusting."</p><p>"As is Midgardian ale. But then, perhaps a drink is not such a bad idea. First things first, however..." Loki, holding the case, tucked the scepter, now walking stick, under his arm and produced the modified cylinder and disappeared only to reappear a few moments later without the case or the scepter.</p><p>"Where did you go? What did you do with them?" Loki's double he had left behind asked.</p><p>"Trust me, you will breathe far easier without either in your possession."  Loki assured him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Maybe you should write this down. I wasn't aware I would have need of an instruction manual." Loki's past self said to his future self. The two, still disguised as nondescript mortals had located a bar not far from the warehouse and now sat with glasses before them, though not of ale.</p><p>Loki, picking up his glass, smiled at his past self's comment before downing another swallow. He had been enlightening his past self regarding details concerning Sigyn, the story of her time on Midgard, her likes and dislikes, quirks of her personality, and her affinity for Earth's music and dancing. He had to stop himself at times, recalling that what he was about to say would not be true for the Sigyn of this new branch timeline he had created as her experiences would be different from the Sigyn he knew. At the moment, she was living on the island with her father...and it appeared that her television and radios would survive in this timeline as her father would now have no reason to destroy them. Loki finished the last of his drink, sitting it back on the table. His double had finished his as well only a moment prior.</p><p>"She is not so complicated as all that. She's not so different from the Sigyn we once knew, surprisingly enough after all she's experienced. It was the discovery of that fact that led me to the realization of how petty were many of my past...I suppose I should say your current grievances."</p><p>A waitress with a tray walked by and stopped as she noticed their empty glasses.</p><p>"Can I get you fellas another?" she asked. Loki looked to his right at the clock on the wall. They still had quite a wait before the time he had appointed for their departure.</p><p>"Yes, if you'd be so kind. Thank you. You?" he asked his past self.</p><p>"Why not." he responded. The waitress smiled, putting their empty glasses on the tray in her hand and turning back towards the bar.</p><p>"It's said that you should never drink by yourself." Loki said in jest.</p><p>"When have we ever been ones to follow such edicts?" Loki's past self replied with a grin.</p><p>"Speaking of edicts," Loki said, pausing as the waitress reappeared at their table, sitting their drinks in front of them, both men thanking her politely almost in unison. After she had moved off, Loki began to speak once again, "Do you recall Bylgia's Pond?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Of course I remember Bylgia's Pond." Loki's past self said, taking a drink from his glass. "What of it-" he continued before abruptly silencing himself and lowering his glass slowly back to the table, a deeply troubled expression crossing his face.</p><p>"You remember that day." Loki asked him.</p><p>"I had tried to forget it even before mother's spell."</p><p>"The same holds true in this timeline as in my own at this point in history. Loriel continues to sit upon the throne of Heven. The Angels are under her control and continue even now to seek Sigyn to take her life. Even if father agrees to rescind his edict and end her exile allowing her to remain on Asgard, she will be in danger. The same is true if he does not and you take her anywhere but the island which is protected from their incursion. You must remain always vigilant for both angels and Loriel along with her demonic minions. What Loriel and her minions truly are cannot be killed, only contained. The means to do so rests in Heven's vault. It is a blue orb which pulses with light. There are portals on Asgard to Heven. Locate one and you can put an end to her once and for all. Destroy the stone in her crown and the people will be freed from her influence."</p><p>"Sounds simple enough." Loki's past self said confidently.</p><p>"If you choose to take her on, do not underestimate her. I once made that mistake and it almost cost me my life."</p><p>Loki's past self now glanced at the clock across the room, hanging on the wall over the bar.</p><p>"By this time I would now have been leading my army..." Loki's past self said, taking another drink. Loki looked down at his drink, realizing the irony...it was around this time he had been asked by Stark if he'd like one. He lifted his own glass to his lips.</p><p>"You know that having failed him, he will eventually come for you." Loki said, knowing he had no need to speak the name of the man to whom he referred. Loki's past self lifted his glass, taking a long drink from it, almost emptying it, before sitting it down again, staring at it in silence for a few moments.</p><p>"I believe I may need another drink." said Loki's past self.</p><p>"When that day arrives, you will need this." Loki said, extending his hand. Held within it was a black hole grenade.</p><p>Loki and his past self having left the bar, of course still in their mortal guises, made their way past various businesses.</p><p>"How much longer?" Loki's past self asked, impatiently. Loki looked to the sky as the sun was just beginning to set.</p><p>"Not long now." Loki said as they passed in front of another business. Loki stopped, looking in the window at the display of old record albums. "Come." Loki said, turning to enter.</p><p>"Why? What is it?"</p><p>"On Midgard, when calling on a woman, it's generally considered proper to bring a gift." Loki explained.</p><p>"Am I myself not the gift?" Loki's past self asked. Loki looked to his past self in silence for a moment before entering the shop. "What?" Loki's past self asked before following Loki inside.</p><p>Sigyn, appearing as the plain woman Frigga had enchanted her to be, sat at the kitchen table inside her and her father's house on the island. A much older man, his hair and beard gray, his face bearing a reddish cast, large bags under his eyes,sat across from her. Both finished their meal that Sigyn had prepared in silence. Sigyn's father sat his utensils on the plate and picked up the bottle of liquor beside it, drinking from it before sitting it back down. Sigyn stood, picking up her empty plate from the table and made her way over to stand beside where her father remained seated, reaching down to take his plate from the table. As she did so, she inadvertently bumped the bottle of liquor with the edge of his plate, tipping it over, the contents beginning to spill across the table.</p><p>"Feeble minded ninny!" her father cried, quickly righting the bottle. Her father rose unsteadily from his seat.</p><p>"I'm sorry! It was-" Sigyn began before she found herself interrupted by a slap across the face. Sigyn stumbled back, dropping the plates in her hand which proceeded to shatter on the floor.</p><p>"Now look what you did! Clean it up!" her father yelled drunkenly in anger before picking up the bottle and turning, walking into the sitting room and making his way unsteadily to the television and turning it on. Lowering himself onto the couch, he placed the bottle on the coffee table in front of it. Sigyn pulled the kitchen trash can over and stooped, picking up the utensils that had rested on the plates and putting them in the sink, then picking up the larger remnants of the broken plates and depositing them within the trash can. Rising, she grabbed the broom and dustpan leaning against the wall and swept up the rest before grabbing a rag from the sink and wiping the spilled liquor from the table before rinsing it out and replacing it back over the divider of the sink.</p><p>Sigyn walked over to stand near the couch, facing her father who stared at the TV, picking up the bottle and taking another long drink.</p><p>"I'll be in my room." Sigyn told him.</p><p>"Good. Get out of my sight. I don't even want to look at you right now."</p><p>Sigyn turned away from her father and walked down the hallway into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.</p><p>Sigyn took a record from a nearby crate and removed it from its cover, putting the cover on the dresser beside the stereo before she placed the record on the turntable. ( watch?v=h6Uht69h8Is) As the music began to play she walked to the window and opened it, sitting on her knees, resting her arms on the windowsill and her chin on them, looking out the window facing the ocean, watching the sun as it set over the water.</p><p>Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl</p><p>Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl</p><p>Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl</p><p>Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl</p><p>As I walk through this world</p><p>Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl</p><p>And you, you are my girl</p><p>And no one can hurt you, oh no</p><p>Yes, I, oh I'm gonna love you, oh oh</p><p>Come on let me hold you darlin'</p><p>'Cause I'm the Duke of Earl</p><p>So hey yea yea yeah...</p><p>Sigyn raised her head, turning it as a loud banging came from outside her door followed by her father's voice yelling through it.</p><p>"Turn down that blasted noise! I'm trying to watch the television!"</p><p>"Alright. Sorry!" Sigyn called out. Sighing, she stood and returned to the stereo, turning down the volume, though she hadn't thought it loud to begin with, before returning to her previous position at the window.</p><p>And when I hold you</p><p>You'll be my Duchess, Duchess of Earl</p><p>We'll walk through my dukedom</p><p>And a paradise we will share</p><p>Yes, I, oh I'm gonna love you, oh oh</p><p>Nothing can stop me now</p><p>'Cause I'm the Duke of Earl</p><p>So hey yeah yeah yeah</p><p>Loki, looking towards the sky as it grew darker as the sun descended to the horizon led his past self to the end of the block and around the corner then into an alleyway behind the brick buildings.</p><p>"This way..." Loki said, walking towards a large dumpster and stopping on the other side of it, out of sight of anyone walking by the entrance to the alleyway. His past self joined him, eyeing their surroundings with disgust.  Loki dispelled his mortal illusion, his past self following suit.</p><p>"Why did you bring me here...it's repugnant..." he whined.</p><p>"We wish not to be seen." Loki answered him.</p><p>"Why does it matter?" Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"Despite you sending the Destroyer here previously and your 'grand entrance' recently, most on Midgard remain blissfully unaware of the presence of other beings outside their own realm. Both events were easily explained away as accidents. Today would have proven to be their rude awakening had events taken the same course that I took them in my time. As long as they remain unaware, this world draws little attention in the wider universe. It's preferable that our existence and that of others remain hidden from them as long as possible as they are woefully unprepared to deal with the threats some from other worlds may pose, as you well know."</p><p>"Eventually someone will burst wide that door."</p><p>"It is inevitable, but it will not be us and it will not be this day." Loki responded.</p><p>"What of Thor?"</p><p>"His involvement in this realm is limited and known by few at the moment. Having avoided the events of New York that took place in my time, in this timeline it will remain so, for awhile at least. Also with the Tesseract and the scepter and its stone removed from this planet, there will be little here to draw the attention of more dangerous elements."</p><p>"I don't understand...other realms appear less advanced than these people...Vanaheim for example."</p><p>"Outwardly, yes, but if you recall your history lessons, you'll remember that those realms accepted Asgard's influence and protection. A small contingent of Midgard's population once did as well but eventually decided to go their own way. Father agreed to allow them to do so and upholds that promise still. If you wish to have any chance of father allowing Sigyn to remain on Asgard, you would do well not to violate the pledge he made, or at least not to violate it any further than you already have. He is already angry with you after what you have done thus far. With the Bifrost gone, it had to have taken him much effort to muster up enough of the dark magic to send Thor here to apprehend you, but by explanation of the mind stone's influence on you and mother as an ally, you may gain his mercy and forgiveness if your interference goes no further."</p><p>"What if I am granted no mercy? You said before he had a cell waiting for me. What of Sigyn then? Who will protect her from her enemies?" Loki's past self said sounding anxious.</p><p>"If she is allowed to remain on Asgard, I am sure mother will see to it until you are released. I doubt your incarceration will be as long as mine was set to be."</p><p>"How long was your sentence?"</p><p>"It was to have been for the remainder of my natural life." Loki responded. Loki's past self looked to him in wide eyed horror.</p><p>"Perhaps we should not return to Asgard."</p><p>"I don't see where you have any choice. Even if you were to decide to remain on the island with her, Father would know your location and would not allow it after what you have already wrought. After my departure you will have no means of transport elsewhere. When you go before him, though It will quite possibly be the most difficult thing you have ever done, you must be contrite. Take responsibility for your actions and show remorse for them. That may go a long way towards mitigating his wrath...it is not outside the realm of possibility that it would shock him into pardoning you altogether. It's not as if he has no red in his own ledger, though if you're wise you will refrain from mentioning that fact." Loki counseled.</p><p>"Shock him? It may possibly go so far as to kill him."</p><p>"Then either way, your problem is solved. We should be on our way." Loki replied. Loki's past self took in a breath and released it audibly. Loki noticed his past self's obviously anxious demeanor. "Nervous?"</p><p>"What do you think?"</p><p>"I wouldn't fret. I've found that things have a way of working out the way they should." Loki told him.</p><p>"It's been so long...what do I do, what do I say?" Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"Just be yourself," Loki told his past version before reconsidering, "though perhaps that isn't the best advice at the current moment. Don't be a douchebag. It's simple enough." Loki took hold of his past self's arm and produced the cylinder in the other, both disappearing into its light.</p><p>Sigyn had put another record on the turntable after changing into pajamas and lay with her eyes closed almost dozing facing the window, feeling the ocean breeze on her face. She had dared to turn the volume up slightly higher on the stereo and her father had not made a return visit so she supposed it was either still within an acceptable range or he had done as he often did, and seemed to be doing more and more often these days and had passed out on the couch. The record had nearly reached the last song on the first side and she contemplated whether to get up and turn it over once it had finished. She decided that if she were still awake, she would do so, but doubted that would be the case.</p><p>She had performed her usual chores throughout the day inside and outside that she did most every day but felt more fatigued than usual. The episode at the end of dinner, though not at all uncommon, had drained her more than such things usually did. She thought perhaps she was reaching the end of her rope. She fantasized about packing a bag, sneaking out the window, making her way down to the shore to the small motorboat there, leaving the island, leaving him...stranding him really, at least for a time until the next scheduled delivery of supplies, and never coming back. Yet she knew she wouldn't do it...she couldn't do it. He was her father along with the only person she really knew on the entire planet. She was acquainted and friendly with the two men who alternated delivering their supplies, her father bringing back others when he went to the mainland to work various jobs, but she wouldn't say she really knew them. Besides, she had not been off the island since they had arrived there almost two centuries ago. All she knew of modern day life she had learned from television, movies and music.</p><p>Loki and his past self stood in Sigyn's bedroom as she lay facing away from them. Unbeknownst to Sigyn, Loki silently undid Frigga's spell, her plain looks replaced with her true appearance. Loki's past self stood staring at Sigyn as if under a spell of his own, transfixed. Loki activated the cylinder, disappearing, leaving his past self alone with her as the last song of the album began to play. Time seemed to stand still as he looked upon the woman he had not laid eyes on since they were both children. ( watch?v=B9uwBHRYt-I)</p><p>If there is a tear on my face</p><p>It makes me shiver to the bone</p><p>It shakes me, Babe</p><p>It's just a heartache that got caught in my eye</p><p>And you know I never cry, I never cry</p><p>Sometimes I drink more than I need</p><p>Until the TV's dead and gone</p><p>I may be lonely</p><p>But I'm never alone</p><p>And the night may pass me by</p><p>But I'll never cry</p><p>Loki's past self, finally willing himself to move, approached the bed. He recalled his last memory of her as she was pulled from his arms and led away as she had called out for him, looking back at him with terror in her eyes as he fought to free himself from the two Einherjar that held him.</p><p>Take away, take away my eyes</p><p>Sometimes I'd rather be blind</p><p>Break a heart, break a heart of stone</p><p>Open it up but don't you leave it alone</p><p>'cause that's all I got to give you</p><p>Believe me Babe, it ain't been used</p><p>My heart's a virgin, it ain't never been tried</p><p>And you know I'll never cry</p><p>And you know I'll never cry</p><p>Well you know, you know, you know, you know</p><p>I Never cry, I never cry</p><p>Contrary to the lyrics of the song that played, Loki felt warm tears welling in his eyes, blurring his vision. He fought them back as best he could, wishing nothing to cloud his vision of the woman before him. Slowly he lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed and reached his arm out towards her.</p><p>"Sigyn..."</p><p>Loki placed his hand on Sigyn's shoulder. Sigyn startled at the unexpected and unfamiliar voice and the hand coming to rest on her body, quickly sitting up and turning to see Loki, drawing back from him in shock, he drawing his hand back quickly from her.</p><p>"Who are you? What do you-" Sigyn appeared to freeze up as she took in the sight of the man sitting on the edge of her bed. Both sat in total silence staring at each other. "Loki...?" She cautiously moved closer to him. Sigyn put a hand out, placing it on Loki's cheek, half expecting to either wake up the moment she made contact or for him to disappear, to have been some sort of hallucination. She felt the warmth of his skin beneath her hand.</p><p>"You remember me?" he asked.</p><p>"Of course I remember you. My Loki..." she managed to say as tears sprang to her eyes as she finally accepted the reality of who she saw before her. Loki held out his arms with a grin that, though the face that expressed it was now a man's, she easily recognized before she threw herself into them, as he wrapped them tightly around her.</p><p>"Would you like to go home now?" Loki asked. Sigyn nodded as she wept.</p><p>"Yes,please...please, take me home."</p><p>"I almost forgot..." Loki said, gently moving Sigyn out of his arms. Extending his arm as if holding something in his hand between his thumb and fingers, a record album appeared between them. Sigyn looked at the cover in shock, slowly taking it from him and looking down at it. It was David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.</p><p>"How did you know?"</p><p>Loki, the future version of him, stood in the sitting room staring at the man who sat slumped where he had seated himself on the couch, his eyes closed, in a drunken stupor. An empty liquor bottle sat on the table in front of him, two others had been pushed to the middle of the table.  Loki kicked the table aside and out of his way, sending the bottles flying and advanced on Sigyn's father. </p><p>"Wake up, you bastard!" Loki said angrily, grabbing the front of Sigyn's father, Vegeir's shirt and hauling him to his feet as he came to in shocked surprise.</p><p>"What the...?! Who the hell are you?!" Vegeir said drunkenly in confusion.</p><p>"Your worst nightmare, you contemptible sot!"</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki and Vegeir materialized out of the pink-violet light of the cylinder on the far side of the island. Loki, keeping a tight grip on the front of Vegeir's shirt glared at the man menacingly, the drunken Vegeir confused and fearful.</p><p>"You're Asgardian...did Odin send you? What do you want?"</p><p>"This is the day of your reckoning." Loki told him.</p><p>"Reckoning? What are you talking about? I haven't done anything! I'm just an old man! Odin exiled me! He took everything from me! Wasn't that enough?" Vegeir said, fear seeming to sober him up somewhat.</p><p>"Not everything! You still had her! You're her father! You were supposed to love her! You were supposed to protect her!" Loki exclaimed, livid.</p><p>Loki released Vegeir before punching him hard in the face. Vegeir staggered backwards, falling onto the ground. Loki marched up to him, taking hold of him and hefting him to his feet.</p><p>"I did...I do love her!" Vegeir stammered, "I am protecting her! She's safe here!"</p><p>"Safe? You must be joking!" Loki said, seething with anger.</p><p>Vegeir swayed both from the effects of alcohol and the Loki's assault. Loki struck him once again, sending Vegeir flying back and to the ground once more. Advancing on him, Loki grabbed the front of Vegeir's shirt to stand him up for a second time as blood trickled from the edge of Vegeir's mouth. Recognition came over Vegeir's expression.</p><p>"You're him...the boy...Odin's son..."</p><p>'What of father? Has his exile also been lifted?" Sigyn asked Loki. Loki's face took on a dark expression as he recalled what his future self had told him of Sigyn's father.</p><p>"Your exile has not officially been lifted as of yet. I came here of my own accord. It is one of many subjects that my father and I will be discussing upon my return. As for your father, I believe it would be better, for the time being, if he remained here."</p><p>"But he depends on me. I'm not sure he could get by without me."</p><p>"It may benefit him to have that fact driven home to him by your absence." Loki said.</p><p>"Perhaps it would, but he's my father. I can't just abandon him."</p><p>"If Odin agrees to end your exile, we will return for him. There's something you should know. It seems I've been a rather naughty boy..." Loki said. Sigyn smiled.</p><p>"So nothing has changed then. So what did you do? What did you turn Thor into this time? Or did you set someone else on fire? I still remember when you made Fandral's clothes disappear...while they were on him. It was the first time I'd seen a boy nude... the only time actually. I'm not sure who was more embarrassed, him or Sif and I. I'm just glad it wasn't Volstagg." Sigyn recalled with a chuckle. Loki grinned as he too recalled the prank before his expression grew serious.</p><p>"I'm afraid it's far more serious than that. You will learn soon enough. When we arrive on Asgard, I will very likely soon after find myself in the dungeon." Loki said. Sigyn reacted with horror.</p><p>"The dungeon? What could you possibly have done that your own father would put you there?"</p><p>"Many things. Much has happened." Loki reached out, taking her hand. "Will you wait for me?"</p><p>"I've waited this long, haven't I? But surely Odin won't go so far, not with his own son." Sigyn told him. Loki looked down at her hand he held in his own.</p><p>"There's something else I must tell you before I find myself locked away. We were children, children don't think to say such things...but it was true then as it is now. If it were not I would now be a prisoner in a place far worse than Asgard's dungeon." Loki said. Sigyn looked to him curiously.</p><p>"What is it?" Sigyn said. Loki, still holding her hand in his, put his other to her cheek.</p><p>"I have never said these words to another, even when it could have benefited me. I could never bring myself to do so, though I misled many in other ways. Once Frigga's spell was broken, I realized why. I love you...I loved you from the first day my mother brought us together." Sigyn sat staring into his eyes, rendered still and speechless upon hearing the words she had dreamed to hear but as the years had passed had lost hope she ever would.</p><p>"I love you, too. I thought of you everyday…" Sigyn closed her eyes as Loki moved towards her, feeling his lips meeting hers. Withdrawing from the kiss, he looked into her eyes.</p><p>"I heard tell that you have a list. Seeing as our time may be limited, perhaps we should get started."</p><p>"How did you know of that?" Sigyn asked. "You just took care of one of them." Sigyn said with a smile. She moved off the bed, grabbing the record album and taking it to the stereo. As she replaced the record on it with the one Loki had gifted to her, she caught a glimpse of herself for the first time in the mirror on the wall above her dresser and gasped. Frozen in place, she stared at her reflection in shock. Loki rose from the edge of the bed and approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder.</p><p>"Mother's spell has been removed. This is who you truly are."</p><p>"This can't be real. It has to be a dream." Sigyn said. </p><p>"This is no dream, I assure you." said Loki.  Sigyn put the needle on the record, shortly after music began to fill the room. </p><p>People stared at the makeup on his face</p><p>Laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace</p><p>The boy in the bright blue jeans</p><p>Jumped up on the stage</p><p>And lady stardust sang his songs</p><p>Of darkness and disgrace...</p><p>"Dance with me..." She said as she put her arms around Loki, laying her head on his shoulder.</p><p>"So you do remember me." Loki, the Loki of the future, said before striking Vegeir once again in the face, sending blood spurting from his nostrils as the man fell hard onto the ground, rolling onto his side. Loki kicked him forcefully in the gut then grabbing Vegeir by the throat, lifted him from the ground and carried him the few feet to the cliff, Vegeir gasping and choking, kicking his feet, frantically trying to loosen Loki's grip.  Though he had not intended to kill him, every cell in Loki's body seemed to be crying out to Loki to do so, to make the wretched man pay the ultimate price for the abuse Sigyn had suffered at his hands. Loki held Vegeir over the edge of the cliff. "It's a shame you can die only once." Loki said as he glared, scowling at Vegeir with loathing.</p><p>Loki thought of the scars he knew Sigyn still bore within herself, and though not visible as Steinn's, they were just as painful and deep, scars she would carry for the remainder of her life. He felt the darkness rising within him, flowing through him. He wanted nothing more than to set it completely free, to let it overtake him once again. As he was about to do so, release his grip on the man and send him plummeting to meet his end just as Vegeir had done in his own timeline, The Ancient One's warning, her words echoed in his head. He had so often in the past wished he would have had the opportunity to do what he was now on the verge of doing, but what would be the cost? A battle raged within him. Vegeir had ceased to struggle. He now only gripped Loki's wrist with both his hands as he locked eyes with Loki.</p><p>"Do it." Vegeir gasped. It was at that moment that Loki realized...as he had told Loriel, he had been a vessel overflowing with suffering that he had visited on all those around him. Vegeir had done the same. His suffering, his hatred of himself was more than could be contained within him. He looked now to Loki to do what he had been attempting to do for years by slowly destroying himself with drink. Finally, Loki turned from the edge of the cliff, tossing Vegeir from him to the ground where he continued to lie, not attempting to rise. "You should have done it.  You should kill me."</p><p>"Sigyn will be returning to Asgard. You will remain here, alone in your exile." Loki realized that murdering Vegeir would actually lead to the opposite of what he wished for the man. It would be too easy. He would suffer far more this way. Loki looked down at the man sprawled on the ground once more before turning and walking away.</p><p>"Tell her I love her..." he heard Vegeir say. He turned to see Vegeir had crawled to the edge of the cliff and was in the process of struggling to his feet. "Tell her I'm sorry...for everything." Vegeir turned, his back to Loki peering down over the edge of the cliff. Immediately, Loki knew what Vegeir intended to do.</p><p>"Wait!-" Loki called out, Vegeir ignoring him as he closed his eyes and stepped off the edge of the cliff, plummeting out of sight. Loki rushed to the cliff's edge and looked down to see Vegeir's broken, now lifeless body on the rocky shore below. Loki sank down to sit upon the ground, putting a hand to his mouth in shock as he heard the sound of the ocean's waves against the shore below as they washed over Vegeir's corpse.</p><p>Loki of the future slowly made his way back across the field to the house, processing what had just happened. In his own timeline, Sigyn had accidentally sent him over the cliff to his demise while defending herself from his abuse. Now in this timeline, he had met his end in the same place by his own hand. What was it The Ancient One had said, that some events were inevitable? Perhaps this was one of them, yet it did not assuage Loki's sense of guilt. He thought back to his past, how for so long guilt was not a sentiment with which he troubled himself, how he would have once tossed the man over without a second thought. In some ways life had been easier then.</p><p>Loki walked around the house to the window of Sigyn's room. He heard music playing from the stereo, music he recognized as he had heard it often enough. Obviously his choice of gift had been well received. The appointed time was nearing. Before it arrived, he would have to find a way to draw his past self away from Sigyn to inform him of Vegeir's demise.</p><p>Loki stood along the wall of the house next to the window and turned his body to peer in...and just as quickly adverted his eyes and moved back against the wall with a look of surprise. He had told Valkyrie he was not a voyeur. Did it count when it came to oneself and one's wife...or at least she who was in his timeline, though what he had just witnessed seemed to bode well for this one.</p><p>How was it possible, Loki thought. It had taken him weeks, more than a month, close to two if he remembered right and then only with Quill's assistance had he succeeded in the endeavor. But then, his Sigyn had been slain by the angels and her essence reborn in a mortal body at the time. She had feared the inevitable deeper connection with him due to his much longer life span that she was unaware would in the future no longer be an issue. Even so, it seemed a quite hasty progression of the relationship, but then, he recalled he wasn't one to waste time dilly dallying in those days, and that was most likely especially true now with the prospect of a dungeon cell looming before him. Perhaps that same possibility had spurred Sigyn to overcome the fear his own Sigyn had expressed unrelated to their differing life spans. At least she could now strike that from her list. Loki now longed more than ever to return to his own timeline, to his own Sigyn, yet he knew there was more he must see to before he could do so, one more thing for certain. Loki turned, walking back around to the front of the house.</p><p>Loki watched in the darkness standing back from the house in the field as he witnessed his brother descend to the ground, Mjolnir gripped in his hand, in his other a containment unit housing the Tesseract. He knew that a Quinjet had to be somewhere nearby, ready at a moment's notice to intervene if the arrangement he had made turned out to be a trap. He recalled Thor's look of confusion and wonder as he had appeared before him on the helicarrier and presented him with the very object for which they had expended so much effort searching. It of course had not been another of his tricks, but Thor's reaction had been almost as satisfying as if it had been. Thor began to walk towards the entrance to the house.</p><p>"I wouldn't go in there if I were you." Loki said from behind him. Thor turned, raising Mjolnir. "Knowing you, the shock of such a sight might render you blind."</p><p>Loki and Thor waited patiently outside the house, Loki having informed a confused Thor of his origin in the future as well as what had become of Vegeir and where his body could be found.  He had requested that his brother not reveal his existence to anyone, including Sigyn, as he had also told his past self to avoid.  The fewer people that knew that time travel was possible the better due to its dangers.  Sigyn also had had enough of a shock what with his past self's appearance, the trajectory of her life for centuries suddenly and unexpectedly changing course, and she would endure a far less happy one soon.  There was no point in complicating and confusing matters for her further.  Loki rendered himself invisible, moving behind Thor as Loki's past self and Sigyn, hand in hand, exited the house. Sigyn upon walking past the couch where she had last seen her father had noticed the overturned table.</p><p>"Good evening, brother." Thor said.</p><p>"Thor, is that you?" Sigyn asked in surprise.</p><p>"Yes. I'm here to return Loki to Asgard and you as well, as agreed."</p><p>"Where's my father?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>Sigyn stood watching as the flames of the pyre upon which her father's body rested engulfed his corpse as Loki held her.</p><p>"We should be on our way." Thor said. Pulling Loki away from Sigyn, he shackled his hands in front of him.</p><p>"What are you doing?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"It's alright." Loki reassured her. Thor extended the capsule containing the Tesseract. "Hold onto me." Loki told her. She took hold of one of his shackled arms with both of hers before he and Thor both took hold of opposite ends of the capsule, all three vanishing from the island.</p><p>Loki's future self watched them from the edge of the pine forest in the distance. Picking up the scepter that rested against the tree which he stood next to, he produced the modified cylinder in his other hand and vanished as well.</p><p>Thor, Loki and Sigyn reappeared on the far side of the Bifrost Bridge. Sigyn looked across it at the ruins, then to Loki, questioningly and troubled. Four Einherjar approached as Thor stepped back, Loki releasing his hold on the capsule. An Einherjar took hold of each of Loki's shackled arms, another placing himself in front and another in back of Loki.</p><p>"Take him to the dungeons." Thor commanded them.</p><p>"Loki!" Sigyn exclaimed, pushing her way between the Einherjar to wrap her arms around Loki, in tears. She couldn't help but be reminded of their previous separation as she had been led away by Einherjar to be exiled.  She felt in a way as if she were reliving that moment in opposite roles.</p><p>"All will be well.  Go with Thor." Loki told her. Sigyn kissed him, the kiss interrupted by the Einherjar in front of Loki pulling her away and handing her over to Thor who took hold of her arm. Sigyn watched as Loki was led away, he looked over his shoulder at her, a grin on his face belying his situation.</p><p>"You will see him again soon." Thor assured her as he grasped her arm, taking her in the direction of the palace.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Frigga stood before a tall, beautifully embellished door in the palace of Asgard as the einherjar assigned duty to stand guard before it opened it for her. She glanced at the guard before entering, the guard closing the door behind the Queen of Asgard after she had stepped inside. Standing on a balcony far across the room, having discarded her Midgardian clothing and now dressed in an Asgardian gown stood Sigyn, her back to the door, taking in the scene before her with wonder, unaware of Frigga's presence.</p><p>"Sigyn Vegeirsdottir." Frigga said. Sigyn slightly startled at the sound of Frigga's voice referring to her by her full name, a name that before Loki had uttered it recently, she had not heard in centuries. Even her father had referred to her by the Midgardian moniker of 'Angela', or a variation of it depending on what land they found themselves in, that had been given to her upon her exile. He had decided long ago that it would be better to do so, lest he inadvertently refer to her by her given name in the presence of an angel in disguise and give away their identity. Once on the island, it had not been nearly as much of a concern, but by the time they had made it there, it had been ingrained in him, and her mother as well when she had still been present, after centuries. He also had had a plethora of other names he had referred to her by when he was drunk, none of them pleasant.</p><p>Sigyn turned to see the woman that she had not laid eyes upon since she was a young girl smiling at her as she moved towards her. Frigga had aged somewhat since then, but Sigyn still thought her to be one of the most beautiful women she had ever known.</p><p>"Frigga!" Sigyn said with a smile as Frigga approached her, the two women embracing. Frigga took Sigyn's hands in hers.</p><p>"I could hardly believe it when Thor told me you were here. Let me look at you! You are as beautiful as I knew you would be. It pained me to be forced to hide it. I'm so sorry about your father." Frigga said.</p><p>"He had been very unkind to me for a long time, but he was still my father." Sigyn said, bowing her head, then turning and looking back out over the balcony.</p><p>"He insisted that I end my visits to you. I had no choice but to respect his wishes. He wanted you to forget Asgard. Knowing that it was doubtful you would be able to return, I thought perhaps he was right."</p><p>"I never thought I'd ever be back here. Odin has to let me stay. I can't return to the island. I would be alone there. He can't send me away again." Sigyn said, fighting back tears.</p><p>"I will do all I can to convince him, but my influence only goes so far. In the end he will do what he believes is best."</p><p>"Best for who? Does he really believe it's best for his own son to lock him up in the dungeon?"</p><p>"I'm afraid it is for the time being. Loki has changed much. He is no longer the boy you once knew." Frigga said sadly.</p><p>"He didn't seem all that different to me, of course he's a man now." A smile flitted across Sigyn's face.  Yes, he is most certainly a man now, he most definitely proved that, she thought to herself, recalling their brief time together on the island.  She had before that never truly felt herself to be fully a woman and had feared she never would.  It was another gift he had given her, far more meaningful even than the one he had brought with him.  She still had no idea how he'd known of the significance to her of that particular album. "What could he possibly have done?"</p><p>"He took the lives of eighty people in the span of two days in a quest to conquer and rule Midgard, not to mention countless defenseless Jotuns before that." Thor said from where he stood in front of the door he had just entered. Sigyn looked to Thor, shocked at his revelation.</p><p>"Loki? He would never-" Sigyn began before Frigga took her arm.</p><p>"I asked Thor to join us. Please, sit. We have much to talk about." Frigga said.</p><p>Thor escorted a visibly anxious Sigyn towards the throne of Asgard as Odin awaited them. Sigyn had of course been there before, as a child, though not often. It had generally been off limits to the children who called the palace home, even to Loki, except on rare occasions. The expansive room with its massive columns and high ceiling was intimidating but not nearly so as the man who sat on the throne, staring down at her. She felt grateful that Thor was by her side. As she reached the throne, both she and Thor knelt before his father.</p><p>"Sigyn Vegeirsdottir. Your return is unexpected."</p><p>"As much by myself as by you, my king." Sigyn said, still kneeling, her head bowed. Both she and Thor rose to their feet, Sigyn still bowing her head, both out of respect and nervousness.</p><p>"You were exiled from this realm to Midgard with your mother and father. I do not recall rescinding that edict."</p><p>"You didn't. Loki found me. He wished me to return with him...I wished it as well. My mother abandoned us. My father is dead."</p><p>"If I may speak..." Thor said to Odin.</p><p>"Yes, my son?"</p><p>"Sigyn had no part in the betrayal committed by her father in which her mother was complicit. She is, as she was then, innocent of any wrongdoing against you or Asgard."</p><p>"It is true, it was no fault of her own, but due to who she is, her presence here was a danger. That danger still exists. If I were to allow her to stay, I cannot guarantee her safety."</p><p>"Frigga has told me all. I'm not safe anywhere except the island where I would now be alone. Without my father and unable to leave, I would have no means to support myself. I would rather face that danger here, with my people and free." Sigyn replied. Odin looked down upon the two before him in silence for a moment, contemplating.</p><p>"My Queen has told me of the hardships you faced during your exile. It was a difficult choice. I took no joy in making the decision to send you away. You may remain on Asgard, for the time being. However, if your presence proves to be a threat, you will be returned to Midgard."</p><p>"I understand. Thank you, my King." Sigyn said. "If I may, I'd like to make one other request. Loki...I wish to see him."</p><p>"He will be brought before me shortly. You may be present if you wish."</p><p>"I need to speak with him. There's something I must know."</p><p>Frigga approached the doors to her chambers. An einherjar guard stood before them holding a long spear. Frigga stopped before him, their eyes meeting as he quickly stepped aside, opening one of the doors for her to enter. Frigga stepped forward and looked over to the einherjar.</p><p>"Did you think I would not know my own son? Thor told me of your presence on Midgard. We must speak." Frigga said. Loki, disguised as the einherjar, followed her into her chambers.</p><p>After closing the door, Loki dropped the illusion, the spear transforming into the scepter, as Frigga turned to him with a look of grave concern, Loki taking note of it.</p><p>"Are you not happy to see me?" Loki asked, puzzled at his mother's demeanor.</p><p>"Of course I am. I'm pleased to know that in the future, the one in which you hail from, you are alive and well, that you have taken a different path from the one you had once chosen."</p><p>"It is due to that new path I have come. Though it will change nothing in my own, now that this new timeline has been created, there are things I wish to set right." Loki explained.</p><p>"What if those things were necessary? Our past leads to our present. All we experience, the good and the bad, all we suffer and endure make us who we are. Your interference will lead many things to change, some may not necessarily be for the better." Frigga said, Loki approached her, taking her hand in his.</p><p>"I had no choice. My past self was the only person who could help me to save my son. It will be better, I promise you. In the future you were to-" Loki began before Frigga interrupted him, removing her hand from his and holding it up before her.</p><p>"No, do not tell me. It is better not to know such things. I know what you are trying to do, that your heart is in the right place. I always knew there was a great deal of good inside you despite the darkness. I never lost hope you would someday find it for yourself. You can try to put out all these little fires, but as you do so others will be created that may prove to be far worse. Return home to your own time and let the future, our future whatever it may now be, take its course."</p><p>"If you think it better."</p><p>"I do." Frigga answered. Loki looked to his mother with sadness. He had originally had no intention of speaking with her, only wishing to see her as she once had been, as he remembered her in the palace of Asgard, but now that he was there with her, he wanted to tell her everything...all about his new life on Heven with Sigyn, his children, her grandchildren, she who now bore her name, but he knew she would refuse to hear it.</p><p>"As you wish." Loki said, turning.</p><p>"Wait." said Frigga. Loki turned back to his mother. "It is possible for us to speak of the part of the past we both share, that which has been unaltered. The scepter you wield...you are aware of the power of the stone contained within it as well as its danger. Tell me how it is you came by it."</p><p>Loki's past self, having found himself a prisoner once more, this time in the dungeon of Asgard, sat on the floor of the otherwise empty cell, his back against the wall, staring out through the force field that contained him within it. Just as on Heven, he had nothing with which to occupy himself but his own thoughts, though now he had a much more pleasant and recent memory to replay in his mind...how he'd felt the first time his eyes had fallen upon her, now a woman, after so many centuries, how instantly that void that he'd felt within him for so long, its true origin unknown to him due to Frigga's spell, was suddenly filled. It had felt as if a ponderous weight that he had lived so long under had been sloughed off and he was now lighter. A peace had fallen over him which had intensified the moment he had placed his hand upon her, the same peace he had once known in her presence as a child that had so suddenly been ripped from him.</p><p>He had not intended, in fact it had not even crossed his mind that things would go so far, but now looking back, it seemed as if it had been inevitable. Her body pressed to him as they'd danced, his arms around her, feeling for the first time in so long that peace and calm flow through him, filled with an emotion he had never allowed himself to truly feel since her loss and never since he had become a man, both of them wanting and needing more, as if longing to melt into each other, to become one after the wait of centuries. He had of course experienced physical pleasure with others in his lifetime, but physical pleasure had been all those experiences had ever given him. With her it had been far more, something he had never experienced before, a bliss that permeated to his soul. He realized that in that way he had been as much a virgin as she. He had never actually 'made love' before in the strictest sense. To learn that she was untouched by another, had never before given herself to anyone, as if she had been meant for him alone...so few things in his life had ever been meant for him it seemed. Even the throne of Asgard were he to have been chosen by Odin as its heir had of course been held by others before.</p><p>A smile lit his features, belying the situation in which he now found himself, as he recalled how she had cried out as he had taken her and then again as he had led her to the height of ecstasy and then once more as he joined her there. He only wished they would have been able to remain as they then found themselves, wrapped in each others arms, until the morning light. He knew the moment he was released from his captivity, were that to be in a day or a year or ten years, however long it may be, it was the first thing he wished to do...to lock himself away again, with her, not in a cell but in his bedchamber in the palace from sundown until dawn.</p><p>He could hardly believe his eyes as they fell upon her as she approached the cell, an einherjar trailing behind her. He knew that his father had prohibited anyone from seeing him, even his own mother was barred from his presence until he had come before him. He quickly rose, crossing the cell to meet her, a smile on his face that faded as he noticed the troubled expression upon her own as she looked upon him through the force field that separated them.</p><p>"Sigyn...be not troubled.  I'm alright. It's not so bad. I'm surprised to see you but glad of it. How is it that you're here? Father forbid me visitors."</p><p>"I've just been before him." Sigyn told him. Loki, putting that fact together with her long face feared the worst.</p><p>"He's sending you away again..."</p><p>"No. He's allowing me to stay. For the time being, anyway. He has allowed me to see you but only for a few minutes." Sigyn responded. Loki, looking relieved, smiled broadly.</p><p>"It is a rare thing, but occasionally my father does see reason. So it is only this cell that troubles you?" Loki asked. Sigyn stared at him as if searching for something in him she had not previously seen. Loki noticed tears welling in her eyes.</p><p>"Loki...I..." she managed to say before looking down. Loki's smile once again faded as he grew increasingly concerned witnessing her demeanor.</p><p>"What is it? Tell me."</p><p>"Frigga and Thor have told me all...why you're here, all that you've done. The lives you've taken on Midgard and Jotunheim, what happened to the Bifrost." Sigyn informed him. Loki looked down as well, for the first time feeling the weight of his previous actions, especially hearing the sadness in her voice and the fact that they were what now kept him from her. "You didn't come to Midgard for me. You came to conquer it, to rule and enslave its people. I could hardly believe what they were telling me."</p><p>"It's true. All of it. I have for many years now not been the person you once knew. Then when Odin chose Thor as his heir, I gave myself completely over to it, the darkness inside me." Loki said, hanging his head before raising it again and looking to her. "But when Frigga's spell was broken, when I found you...I no longer harbor such dark desires. My only desire now is for you, to be with you."</p><p>"I want to believe you, but I also know now that you have misled others. You told me so yourself."</p><p>"Once I'm free, I will prove it to you." Loki said, desperation in his voice. Sigyn was silent for a moment, continuing to look down, then raised her head and looked into his eyes.</p><p>"My father...did you kill him?" Sigyn asked. Loki appeared shocked at her question, silent for a moment before answering.</p><p>"No. I never saw your father, I never spoke to him. I didn't kill him. I swear it." Loki said to her. The einherjar behind Sigyn put a hand lightly on her shoulder.</p><p>"I must go now." Sigyn said, turning to follow the einherjar.</p><p>"I love you." Loki called out to her. Sigyn turned her head, looking at him over her shoulder.</p><p>"Your father will be sending for you soon." she said before continuing to follow the einherjar to the stairs and ascending them.</p><p>Loki entered the throne room escorted by multiple einherjar leading him shackled and chained towards the throne upon which his father sat looking down on him as he approached. Loki thought the chains too much and believed them ordered by Odin as a further humiliation. As if being shackled and brought before his father like a common criminal was not enough, he thought. He stared grimly ahead of him with a defiant air as he traversed the columned aisle.</p><p>Turning his head, he saw his mother, Sigyn standing beside her, grief etched on both of their faces. His defiance faded, his expression changing to one of remorse as he saw a tear escape from Sigyn's eye and course down her cheek, then another. As he neared them, Frigga stepped forward.</p><p>"Loki..."</p><p>"Mother..." Loki acknowledged her, pausing as he looked upon her, "forgive me the shame I've caused you." Frigga looked surprised at his words, having expected quite different ones.</p><p>"Silence! I alone will speak to the prisoner." Odin commanded sternly. Frigga backed away, rejoining Sigyn.</p><p>As Loki reached the presentation area before the throne, the einherjar escorting him coming to a stop, Loki turned his head to look once again upon Sigyn. Facing his father once again, Loki bowed his head and lowered himself to both knees as the sound of the chains he bore echoed through the throne room. Odin looked down from where he sat on the throne in silence, having like Frigga, expected far different from his wayward son.</p><p>"You are here now to answer for your crimes against Jotunheim and Midgard, for the lives in those realms you have taken and the shame your actions have brought upon the throne of Asgard. Have you anything to say?"</p><p>"I admit my guilt. I alone am responsible for my misdeeds. If I am for the axe, I ask only that it be swift."</p><p>"When I took you in after you had been cast out on that frozen rock, I could not have foreseen this day. Even if I had, I could not have been so cruel as to leave a child to die and in such a way. I seek your death no more this day than I did then. I know I have given you cause to hate me over these many years. I sought always to do what was best for Asgard and also for you as my son. I know that there have been times when I have failed in both pursuits, when those concerns conflicted, one of the great difficulties of being a king and a father." Odin paused, continuing to look down on Loki who remained silent, on his knees, his head bowed low. "Your mother has told me of what transpired after your fall from the Bifrost, he whose influence you fell under. You were not, however, under that influence when you made your deal with Laufey or when you attacked Jotunheim. Seeing however as you abandoned your pursuit of Midgard and willingly gave up the Tesseract and yourself before more damage was done, I have taken that into consideration and it weighs in your favor, as does freely admitting your guilt before me.</p><p>"It must not be forgotten, however, that lives have been lost. For those lives a price must be paid. Thor tells me there were eighty on Midgard. It is unknown the exact number on Jotunheim. In restitution for those lives, you will spend the next century in the dungeon."</p><p>Sigyn hung her head, quietly weeping. Her feelings for Loki were now conflicted, the loyalty she had always felt to Loki causing her to feel as if she were being torn in two different directions within herself, yet she could not help but feel devastation over the sentence handed down by Odin. Frigga, also appearing grief stricken, put an arm around her, pulling her close. Loki felt his heart sink within him. He had been hopeful after what his future self had told him. Of course a century to an Asgardian was not nearly as long as for mortals, but a fraction of one's life, but time passed for Asgardians at the same rate. It was still a heavy sentence to bear. Yet, knowing his future self had been sentenced to life, he knew it could have been far worse. But another century separated from her and after they had just been reunited...it filled him with despair, especially now that he knew she suspected him of the death of her father and was reeling under her newfound knowledge of his past and his crimes since her exile. He would have no way to prove himself to her, to reassure her that he no longer wished to be that man with her by his side as he'd be locked away in a cell. What if in that time due to her doubts she chose not to wait for him and found another?</p><p>"Return the prisoner to his cell." Odin ordered the einherjar. Loki rose, his head hanging low, now no longer due to a desire to appear contrite. The sound of clanking chains again echoed throughout the throne room as he did so and as the einherjar flanking him led him back out the way in which they'd come, back to the dungeon where he had only loneliness and isolation to look forward to for the next century. Who would keep her safe? Would she wait for him? He was unsure now and the possibility of losing her was a harsher sentence than the one that his father had just handed down to him.</p><p>Standing near Sigyn and Frigga, watching his past self as he was led away, Loki disguised as another einherjar heard the sound of Sigyn's quiet weeping as Frigga, an arm around her, led her out of another door along the side of the throne room.  Loki looked to Odin as he sat on his throne, looking defeated and tired. Now alone but for the einherjar standing sentry in the throne room, Odin rose from the throne and stepped down from it, himself exiting through another door on the far side of the expansive room.</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Were the chains really necessary? " Sigyn asked Frigga as the two walked the long corridor of the palace.</p><p>"Odin has a reason for everything he does. It may be that he believed they would send a message. Perhaps they did. I had feared Loki would only make things worse. I had expected him to be more impertinent." Frigga said.</p><p>"When he told me on the island that he could end up in the dungeons, I thought he was exaggerating, that it had just been a prank gone wrong. It wouldn't have been the first time. Do you think he'll really keep him imprisoned for so long?"</p><p>"I cannot say. It is a lengthy sentence, but It could have been far worse."</p><p>"He'll go mad...maybe he already is. He didn't seem so to me, he was as I remembered him. If he'd been otherwise I would never have-" Sigyn began to say, then stopped herself.</p><p>"What is it?" Frigga asked as they neared the chambers Sigyn had been assigned upon her arrival, an einherjar standing guard outside of it.</p><p>"I shouldn't speak of such things...you're his mother.  It seems strange..." Sigyn said. Frigga stopped walking, reaching out and taking both of Sigyn's hands in hers, turned her to face her, though Sigyn remained with her head bowed.</p><p>"You were like the daughter I never had. Much has changed but that has not. Whatever it is, you can tell me." Frigga reassured her. Sigyn remained silent for another moment, her head still hanging.</p><p>"Loki and I...I don't think either of us planned...it just happened..."</p><p>"You need say no more." Frigga said with a gentle smile.</p><p>"It was too soon."  said Sigyn.</p><p>"I would say it was long overdue. Had you remained on Asgard it likely would have happened long ago."</p><p>"What must you think of me? A man just appears in my bedroom..."</p><p>"He was not just any man. I'm thinking that men appearing in your bedroom didn't happen often." Frigga said with a smile. Sigyn couldn't help but smile slightly herself.</p><p>"No. That was the first time, actually...on both counts." the smile faded from Sigyn's face as she continued, "But now...I'm afraid...what if I..."</p><p>"If you were to find yourself with child? It would be welcomed and loved as any." Frigga assured her.</p><p>"But I would be alone...he would be locked away...they would someday know the shame of having a father in the dungeon. Children can be cruel when it comes to such things."</p><p>"I had forgotten your tendency to overthink. Let us not ponder such things until there is reason to ponder them." Frigga told Sigyn.</p><p>"I don't know what to think...what to feel." Sigyn said, tears again welling in her eyes.</p><p>"Do you love him?" Frigga asked.</p><p>"I do, I always have, in the past I had always been loyal to him no matter the circumstance...but is that enough?  After what he's done...if he did kill my father...he said he did not, but he has misled so many..."</p><p>"That is something you must decide for yourself. Odin himself lived through a dark time long ago. He was not always the man he is today. Are you sure you don't wish to join me in my chambers? You're welcome to do so." Frigga said. Sigyn looked towards the door of her own.</p><p>"I think I need to be alone for awhile." Sigyn said quietly.</p><p>"I understand. Will you be joining us for dinner?"</p><p>"I'm not sure I'll be hungry."</p><p>"I'm afraid my appetite may be lacking as well, but it would not do for either of us to starve. I will send Thor to escort you, if you feel up to it." Frigga said, then embraced Sigyn. "I have a surprise for you. I will give it to you then."</p><p>"What is it?" Sigyn asked, curiously. She could not imagine what it could be. Her return had been unexpected.</p><p>"If I told you, it would not be a surprise." Frigga said with a smile before moving off down the corridor. Sigyn walked to the door of her own chambers, the einherjar opening it for her and then closing it behind her.</p><p>Sigyn looked around her silent chambers for a moment, still unable to believe she was where she now found herself. She had convinced herself for a time that Asgard had been but a childhood fantasy, a place her mind had created to escape her mundane life, the stress of constantly moving from place to place, her loneliness and isolation, but her memories had just been too vivid and real as had been her dreams. </p><p>She now found herself there, as she had always wished, but without him by her side as she had envisioned.  She was unsure if he even still existed.  Her mind now reeling, swirling in confusion, she collapsed onto the cushioned chaise, lying prone across it, burying her face in one of the soft, velvety upholstered pillows upon it and wept.</p><p>Loki, continuing to disguise himself as an einherjar, made his way quietly down the corridor which his father had traversed moments earlier upon stepping down from his throne. Reaching the room he knew to be his father's study and library, he stood against the wall near the closed door.</p><p>Closing his eyes, Loki projected himself into a corner of the room in an area he knew was bathed in shadow and saw his father seated at the large, ornately carved table, a book lying on it in front of him. Odin, looking physically and mentally drained and tired, opened the book and gazed down at it for a moment, before covering his face with his hands, his shoulders beginning to tremble as he did so. Loki could hardly believe what he was seeing as he watched his father silently weep. He could not recall in his entire lifetime ever witnessing his father so much as shed a single tear.</p><p>Loki felt tears welling in his own eyes at the sight. Had his father in his own timeline done the same after he had so callously, at least it had seemed to Loki at the time, sentenced him to spend the remainder of his life in the dungeon? Seeing this version of his father do so after sentencing his past self of this timeline to only a century of imprisonment led him to believe he most likely had.</p><p>What Loki had come to do could wait. He pulled his consciousness from the room and turned, retracing his steps back to the throne room.</p><p>Sigyn had fallen into a deep slumber upon the chaise, emotionally and physically spent from all that had taken place in a relatively short amount of time. It was difficult to believe that less than a day before she had still been on her island, no idea what was about to take place, that within a few short hours, her life would so dramatically change.</p><p>The sun was just beginning to set, evening falling across Asgard, the sky beginning to change colors in the distance visible from the balcony of the sitting room of her chambers. Sigyn stirred, opening her eyes, the dream she had found herself in fading, the fog of sleep slowly lifting as she felt a hand fall upon her shoulder.</p><p>Loki's past self glumly stood by a table that had recently been placed within his cell, along with other comforts his mother had sent. Upon the table rested a stack of books. He opened the cover of the volume on top of the stack.</p><p>"Mother's been redecorating, I see." Loki's past self heard his own voice say. Closing the book he attempted to discern from where the voice was originating. "Behind you." Loki's past self turned to see his double sitting on the bed. He knew well that he was not really there, that Loki's physical body resided elsewhere nearby and he was projecting his image into the cell.</p><p>"If this is all I am to do for the next century, I will leave this cell the best read man on Asgard. That is if I don't go completely mad." Loki's past self said. "I thought you had absconded back to your own time and left me here to rot."</p><p>"I thought I would remain for a time and attempt to smooth your path." Loki said.</p><p>"Oh, you've done such a fantastic job of that thus far!" Loki's past self exclaimed sarcastically. "I did everything you told me! I practically licked Odin's boots--"</p><p>"Practically?  Did I forget to mention that part?"  Loki said in jest to his past self.  His past self looked at him in irritation.</p><p>"Yet here I find myself once again, caged like an animal for the next hundred years! How can I possibly protect her now? To make matters worse, she believes that I killed her father. I told her it wasn't me but I don't think she believed a word I said. I suppose were it anyone else I would consider that wise....did you kill him?"</p><p>"No, I did not. He chose to end himself. Calm yourself. As usual, I have a plan."  Loki said confidently.</p><p>"I can't wait to hear it! Obviously your last one worked out brilliantly!" Loki's past self exclaimed.</p><p>"Before I set it into motion, however, you must agree to it. If successful it will kill two birds with one stone. It will free you from this cell and end any danger to Sigyn. However, it is not without risk."</p><p>"I don't see as I have anything more to lose at this point. So what is this grand plan?" Loki's past self grumbled.</p><p>"To repay the debt you owe in place of spending the next century in this cell, you will save the lives of many more than the number you have taken. You will locate a portal to Heven and put an end to Loriel and free the people of that realm from her control. In doing so, you will also end the threat to Sigyn's life." Loki explained.</p><p>"Father will never agree. You know what he always says, 'A wise king never seeks out war-'"Loki's past self quoted his father.</p><p>"But must always be ready for it. Yes, I know. I will convince him of the wisdom of it."</p><p>"You? And how exactly do you plan to do that?" Loki's past self asked, cynically.</p><p>Thor approached the door to Sigyn's chambers, the einherjar standing sentry doing his duty and opening it for him as he reached it. Stepping inside, the door closing behind him, he glanced around the apparently empty room until his eyes caught sight of Sigyn as she pulled herself up onto the railing of the balcony and stood, the skirt of her gown billowing in the breeze.</p><p>"Sigyn! No!" Thor cried out in horror at the sight, at what it was obvious she intended to do. Thor raced across the room towards the balcony as Sigyn raised her arms out at her sides as if she were about to take flight. Leaning forward, Sigyn fell from the balcony just as Thor reached it, quickly attempting to grab hold of her, a moment too late, Sigyn's body landing on the stone paved courtyard below.</p><p>Loki's past self sat in his cell, his back against the wall near the force field, perusing one of the many books Frigga had sent to him as Thor approached. Seeing him nearing from the corner of his eye, Loki closed the book turning his head towards him.</p><p>"Brother..." Thor said.</p><p>"Thor.  What are you doing here? Have you come to stare as if I were an exhibit in a menagerie? To gloat?" Loki asked. Thor ignored Loki's provocations.</p><p>"I'm afraid I come as the bearer of grim tidings. I thought it better if I were to deliver the news myself." Loki's demeanor changed as he noticed Thor's deeply troubled expression. Loki looked to Thor with apprehension.</p><p>"What is it? What's happened?"</p><p>"Sigyn has attempted to take her own life." Thor said. Loki rose quickly to his feet.</p><p>"Attempted? She still lives?" Loki asked hopefully.</p><p>"She threw herself from the balcony of her chambers. I saw her but I could not reach her in time. She is being seen to in the healing room now. Her injuries are grave. It's not yet known if she will survive them. Everything that can be done is being done for her." Thor told Loki in a somber voice.</p><p>"You must speak to father! He must release me! I need to be with her!" Loki said quickly, panicked with a look of abject fear and anguish.</p><p>"I doubt he will allow it, but I will tell him of your request. I will keep you informed if there is any change in her condition. I'm sorry, brother." Thor said before turning and walking away, ascending the steps of the dungeon. An einherjar made his way to stand in the spot that Thor had just vacated.</p><p>"Sigyn would never take her own life! I thought it would take them longer to learn of her presence here.  They must have spies on Asgard still!" the einherjar, Loki's future self in disguise said, hardly able to believe what he had just heard.</p><p>"Release me! I must go to her!" Loki's past self pleaded.</p><p>"If I were to do so, you would be struck down the moment you were to be discovered outside the dungeon. I will return." Loki's future self said, his einherjar form rushing to the steps that Thor had ascended moments before. Loki watched him go with an expression of grief and desperation. He turned his back to the force field balling his fists in frustration and rage as the table holding the books flew across the cell, crashing into the wall, sending the books upon it flying throughout the cell.</p><p>Loki watched as he stood invisible against the wall of the corridor off the throne room leading to Odin's study as the einherjar that had just informed Odin of what had transpired exited and moved off out of sight. Loki, rendering himself visible once again and this time in his true form entered Odin's study, scepter in hand, as Odin walked towards the door. He stopped, staring at Loki, silent and aghast though attempting to veil it and portray a commanding and unphased air.</p><p>"Father..."</p><p>"Loki.....how is it you escaped the dungeon?" Odin asked.</p><p>"I didn't." Loki said, holding out the scepter and placing it to Odin's chest, Odin's remaining eye growing dark. "You're going to release me. After that, you will tell me where I may find that which I seek."</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thor and Frigga stood across from where Sigyn, unconscious and motionless, dark red spots and a few larger stains of blood in various places upon her gown, lay upon the soul forge. Thor put a supportive arm around his obviously concerned and grieving mother as they observed the middle aged Asgardian woman study and rapidly manipulate the golden projection of Sigyn's form above her actual body as a glow like sunlight bathed the injured woman from the table beneath her.</p><p>"I never should have left her alone." Frigga said, guiltily.</p><p>"You could not have known what she had it in her mind to do." Thor said, attempting to console his mother and ease her conscience.</p><p>"She just lost her father. She had expressed to me her fears, her confusion concerning Loki. She was distraught after his sentencing."</p><p>"You must not blame yourself." Thor said.</p><p>"Our son is right. I thought I would find you here." Odin said as he entered the room.</p><p>"She has no one else now." Frigga said, looking sadly upon Sigyn as the Asgardian healer continued her work.</p><p>"What is her condition?" Odin asked the healer.</p><p>"It is still quite serious. She was near death when she arrived. I tended to the most severe of her injuries first of course, those are now healing, but there are many more. Her cognitive signs are weak, erratic. I am hopeful as more healing takes place they will stabilize. Such extensive and grave injuries, even as they are healing, may yet overwhelm her. If that happens she will be lost."</p><p>"Loki has asked to be released to be with her. Considering the seriousness of her condition, perhaps it would be-" Thor began before Odin interrupted him.</p><p>"I am aware of his petition and it has been granted." Odin said before stepping aside. Loki, his wrists shackled before him, flanked by two einherjar entered the room. Thor and Frigga looked on in surprise. Odin nodded to the einherjar, one of them moving in front of Loki, freeing him from the shackles before stepping back. Loki, seeming to ignore all others in the room, moved to Sigyn's side, across the soul forge from where the healer hurriedly continued her work.</p><p>Loki looked down upon her. She appeared to merely be serenely sleeping yet Loki could tell from the image projected above her and the demeanor of the healer that was far from the case. He glanced across to the healer, holding his hand above Sigyn's.</p><p>"May I...?" he asked.</p><p>"Yes...please do." the healer told him. Loki took Sigyn's hand between both of his own.</p><p>"Sigyn...I'm here. I'm not leaving you." Loki said, looking to her for any sign she was aware of his presence. The healer across the table glanced to her left at something in the projection.</p><p>"Keep speaking to her." she said.</p><p>"As much now as I did then, I need you. Stay with me."</p><p>Loki of the future timeline, once again disguised as an einherjar, entered the chambers he knew to be those he had once called his own long ago and dispelled his guise. Moonlight streamed into the otherwise dark room. He could tell from the shadows it created that they had remained untouched since his past self had last been there, before his fall from the Bifrost. He was sure he had his mother to thank for that fact.</p><p>Fatigue, both physical and mental, weighed heavily on him. He couldn't remember when it was he had last slept but knew it had been some time. He had the stamina to go without for quite awhile but his reserves were nearly empty. Frigga had been right, once again displaying her profound wisdom. He wondered how it was he had brushed it aside so often during her life. For every fire of the past he tried to put out, another he had not foreseen sprang up. He feared he had made quite a mess of things. He was determined, however, to see it through. Through to what end he wasn't sure.</p><p>A part of him wished to take the modified cylinder in hand and return to his own timeline, to his own Sigyn, his children, his life on Heven, and forget about this new branch timeline. Did it really matter what happened here? Once he returned to his own, it would not have any effect on his life, at least that he was aware of. The one his body had come from when the Avengers had returned to New York and bungled the operation to retrieve the Tesseract allowing his escape went on somewhere, separate from the one in which he now lived his life and having no effect upon it. Sigyn was right though, the people in this timeline were as real and alive as he, had feelings, hopes, dreams, desires, fears, just as he did. He had created this timeline, he was in a way the father of it, and as a father should, as he did for his own children, he felt a responsibility to it, for the lives within it, at least those that had been closest to him in his own. But just as a parent must someday do with their children once they have grown, he knew the time would come, he hoped soon, when he must end his involvement and allow things to go their own way, as his mother had counseled he should.</p><p>He made his way in the darkness to the cushioned chaise, his memory of the layout of the room coming back to him and sank down upon it, laying the scepter across his lap. He closed his eyes, his head drooping from fatigue. He did not notice as the stone in the scepter began to glow of its own accord.</p><p>"Asgardian!" Loki heard a familiar, sinister voice hiss. Startled, Loki raised his head, opening his eyes to find himself no longer in his old chambers in the palace, but in another familiar place, the rocky landscape that filled him with dread. He stood staring at the repulsive image of the creature in the long, dark hooded robe and metallic mask only known to him as 'The Other.' Neither the place or the creature before him had he thought to ever see again. "Did you think you would get away with such a betrayal? Your master will have his revenge upon you!"</p><p>"I have no master." Loki responded.</p><p>"What have you done with the Tesseract?" The Other hissed menacingly.</p><p>"Do you think I would be fool enough to tell you? It is now safe from him who holds your leash."</p><p>"Thanos does not tolerate failure. There are consequences! He will come for it and for you."</p><p>"Let him come. I doubt he will wish to take on one powerful enough that he now wields three Infinity Stones. Correct me if I'm wrong, though I rarely am, but I believe that's three more than Thanos has in his possession." Loki said confidently. The Other stood in shock at Loki's words.</p><p>"You lie!" The Other exclaimed.</p><p>"Tell your master he will never be a god."</p><p>"Your insolence will be punished!" The Other cried as the communication ended, Loki raising his head and looking to the scepter held in his hands. Leaning it against the wall, Loki stretched out on the chaise, closing his eyes.</p><p>Loki's past self sat next to the bed in Sigyn's bedchamber facing her still form lying under the silky sheet and soft blanket that had been drawn over her in the bed in which she had not yet had the chance to sleep. Two einherjar stood in the doorway, supervising him during his reprieve from the dungeon. He held Sigyn's hand in his, feeling her pulse, willing it to continue. The soul forge and the healer had done their work, all that could be done. The rest was up to Sigyn herself, he had been told. She had yet to awaken or show any signs of consciousness in any form.</p><p>Loki's past self questioned his future self's interpretation of the event. Thor had stated he had seen her climb onto the railing, had watched her willingly cast herself off of it. He recalled her demeanor when she had visited him, the horror and hurt she had expressed as she told him of what she had learned of him, her questioning whether he had any part in her father's death, He had seen the pain in her eyes as he had been led in chains before his father and heard the sound of her weeping upon his father passing his sentence. He was sure she must believe the boy to whom she had been so attached, that she had loved, to no longer exist in any form, the person she thought she knew to be in a sense dead...and for a time, he was, or at least buried so deep within himself that he seemed so. So much had happened since those few happy hours they'd spent on the island since being reunited. It could have well been enough for someone with Sigyn's past history of traumas to be set adrift into a sea of madness and seek a permanent escape from what appeared to be their life's seeming pattern of despair.</p><p>However, if his future self was right, if her injuries were the result of the demonic entities that now controlled Heven, as Loki's past self also acknowledge could be the case, they had attempted to cause her to take her own life long before, as a child in Bylgia's pond, if she lived they would almost certainly make another attempt. He was determined not to allow that to happen. Though on one hand he resented the presence of the einherjar sentries keeping watch over him, on the other he appreciated the added layer of security they provided.</p><p>Frigga entered the room, walking through the doorway between the two silent einherjar, a white case held in her hands. She looked to Loki and Sigyn with despair as Sigyn continued to lie unconscious.</p><p>"She has yet to awaken?" Frigga asked, having before her arrival hoped that perhaps she had done so during her absence. Loki shook his head.</p><p>"No. I've been speaking to her but I don't know if she hears me.  If she does, she's given me no sign of it."</p><p>"You should continue to do so regardless." Frigga said. Loki turned his head to his mother, noticing the object she carried.</p><p>"What's that?" he asked.</p><p>"I was going to give this to her at dinner...or return it I suppose I should say." Frigga walked up to stand next to Loki, placing the case on the bed beside Sigyn. "When she was exiled with her parents, they were of course not allowed to take any of their possessions with them, only what your father had provided for them. Afterwards, I retrieved it from her room before it was emptied of their belongings." Frigga opened the case, revealing a baby doll wearing a long blue dress. Loki looked down at it in disbelief and wonder.</p><p>"Nahni..."</p><p>"I had hoped after the war, she would be able to return someday. I knew how special she was to her." Frigga said. Loki lifted the doll from the case. Though now centuries old, It looked almost the same as it had the last day he had seen it being held in Sigyn's arms as a child. Placing Nahni in Sigyn's arm on her opposite side from him, he looked down at the woman and the doll in dismay. Frigga put a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>"She will come back to you." Frigga reassured him.</p><p>"I wish I could be as certain. Perhaps she has no wish to. The universe has always played such games...dangling that which I want most before me only to deny me."</p><p>"Your father has told me of your plans, your agreement. I know well he would never of his own will agree to such a thing.  Have you placed an enchantment on him?" Loki turned his head from Sigyn to look to his mother.</p><p>"How could I? I was locked away in my cell."</p><p>"Your other then. Yes, I know of him. He remains here still even after I warned him of the danger? I suppose I should not be surprised." Frigga said.</p><p>"Or perhaps after all this time father has by some miracle grown a heart." Loki said disdainfully. "I must say I was shocked when Sigyn told me he was allowing her to stay, that he didn't send her away merely to vex me."</p><p>"If your father did not have a heart, he would not have brought you here. You would have died on Jotunheim, or have you forgotten?"</p><p>"Rest assured, I haven't forgotten that I spent the whole of my life being lied to, being told one thing, then finding out another. Do you recall the nightmares she once suffered as a child? I now have to wonder if a part of her knew. Maybe that's why she doesn't awaken as she now knows me to be the monster that haunted her dreams."</p><p>"If she believes you to be a monster, it is not due to your true heritage.  It was not that knowledge that troubled her. In fact, she took it well when I revealed it to her. As I told her, which you had given neither I nor your father the chance to explain to you, your father's work was thorough. You are as Asgardian as any of us. When your true heritage is revealed as when you touched the casket, it is only something like an echo."</p><p>"I should have figured as much considering my son...my other's son was not eight foot tall and blue." Loki said with a slight grin.</p><p>"This arrangement with your father whatever its origin...you plan to do this thing?"</p><p>"If she recovers, yes. If not, I will gladly return to my cell and there descend to madness. I will welcome it. There will be little point in doing otherwise. " Loki said. Frigga looked down silently on Sigyn for a moment.</p><p>"Do you remember the day not long after I had brought the two of you together when she decided without telling her mother to come look for you and became lost in the palace?" Frigga asked.</p><p>"Yes, now that you mention it, though the memory is a bit hazy. I was very young then, we both were." Loki stated. He was confused as to why his mother had brought up that particular memory. It seemed to have no relevance to the situation.</p><p>"I will leave you to be alone with her. Send word if you have need of me." Loki nodded as Frigga picked up the now empty case from the bed and exited past the sentries. Loki continued to look down upon Sigyn, Nahni now tucked in her arm as she had so often been when Sigyn was a child. He continued to ponder why his mother had related that particular memory from so long ago. He recalled another time that she had wandered away...or more accurately bolted into the woods after he had frightened her with the rather graphic illusion of the beheaded ghost of Eigill. He had been forced to search for her that day as well...the previous time that Loriel or one of her demonic minions had possessed her mind, led her to walk to what was to have been her death under the water of the pond. He recalled his feeling of horror as Heimdall had emerged from under the water with her in his arms and then his relief as she began to cough up the water she had inhaled into her lungs proving she was still alive. His expression changed as the answer came to him.</p><p>Still holding her hand in his and closing his eyes, Loki moved the palm of his other hand to rest upon her forehead.</p><p>The Chamber, untouched since the day Bor's warriors had been there many millennia before, surrounded Loki as he stood experiencing more than a touch of anxiety standing a few feet from a large pair of rectangular stones, one atop the other, a small space in between. It was what rested between them that he had come to acquire. In one hand, Loki held the scepter, in the other the device his father had given to him that was necessary to contain it. A dim light from above provided just enough illumination to see by, but only just.</p><p>The Other had technically been correct that Loki was being less than truthful in his boast. He had at the moment only two Infinity Stones to which he had access, though they together were powerful enough...the Tesseract which now resided once again in Odin's vault and that in the scepter he now held in his hand. He was now looking at the third, or at least where in liquid form it now rested.</p><p>He had no plans to do as Thanos had done, though he now knew where the other three stones were located and could easily obtain two of the three of them during his stay in this timeline if he wished to do so. There was no one he loved, that he cared for, that he could ever be convinced to sacrifice for the third. His reason for obtaining this particular cosmic relic was personal, hoping to prevent the event that yet haunted him and left him burdened still with guilt that he knew was in the near future if he did not do so. That was his only goal, though his plans for it would also preclude Thanos from ever realizing his ultimate goal in that timeline. It would not benefit him, any of Thanos' victims he had ended by means other than his snap, or her whatsoever upon his return to his own timeline but Loki didn't care. He would be setting things right in one reality at least.</p><p>Calling up his father's directives in his mind for the safe collection and containment of the liquefied and powerful relic, Loki took a breath, steeling himself for the task he was about to perform.</p><p>Sigyn, again a young girl, wandered alone among the trees of the forests of Asgard. She could not recall how she had gotten there, only knowing that she had somehow lost her way. Daylight had begun to fade and she feared she would not find her way out before night fell. She was afraid that she may be going in circles. She knew this was the forest where she and Loki had spent so much time, yet even when she had found herself in an area she recognized, such as the large tree where she and Loki had shared his candy and awaited the appearance of Eigill's ghost, once taking the path she had been sure led back to civilization, she found herself once again lost and unsure in which direction to go.</p><p>As she walked she felt something snag the skirt of her gown. Stopping to free herself, she looked down to see branches covered with thorns hooking themselves into the fabric. She knew she must be careful in removing them and freeing herself so as not to rip it. Her mother would be cross if she ruined yet another dress. As she attempted to release herself she felt something wrapping itself around her ankles. Panicked, she no longer cared about the condition of her clothing and fled, the thorns ripping through her skirt, shredding the beautiful blue brocade. She cried out as she felt the white hot pain where thorns had torn open the skin of her ankles as well. She knew it would soon heal, but it was painful nonetheless. She could feel trickles of blood running from her ankles down into her shoes.</p><p>Whimpering and now more afraid than before as it seemed the thorny branches had a mind of their own and had purposefully tried to wrap themselves around her, she continued on, anxiously scanning around her for any signs of further danger. Looking upwards through the canopy of the trees, she could see the sky growing ever darker.</p><p>"Sigyn!" she heard a voice, a young boy's voice calling from somewhere within the forest. "Sigyn! Can you hear me? Where are you?"</p><p>"Loki?!" she called out turning herself, attempting to pinpoint from what direction the voice was coming.</p><p>"Yes, it's me! Call out to me and I will find you."</p><p>"I don't know where I am! I'm lost! Please hurry! It will be dark soon!" Sigyn cried. Hearing a stirring in the forest a few yards away, Sigyn turned her head. "Loki, is that you? I'm right here!" Sigyn stood stunned with fright for a moment as a Jotun appeared coming towards her through the trees. Screaming, Sigyn turned, running in the opposite direction.</p><p>"Sigyn! No! Stay where you are!" Loki called out, hearing her screams as they seemed to be moving away from him. Quickly turning and heading in the direction in which it sounded as if she had run, Loki sprinted after her.</p><p>Loki knew well that what he was now doing was dangerous.  He had never actually attempted it before, though his mother had taught him the trick long before.  If Sigyn were to lose her battle while he was linked to her mind, projecting himself within it, he could be lost as well, leaving his body in a catatonic state until his physical functions finally ceased.  

</p><p>Sigyn moved behind a tree and sat on the ground, trying to make herself appear smaller, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, peering around nervously for any sign of the Jotun.</p><p>"Sigyn! Where did you go?" Loki called out. Sigyn heard him but was reticent to answer. If she did, the Jotun would hear her as well and track her down. Loki's voice had sounded closer, perhaps she could find him instead of waiting for him to find her. She rose to her feet, once more glancing around the forest and headed in the direction from which she thought his voice had come.</p><p>She had traversed a few yards into the forest when suddenly it felt as if the ground was shifting, sinking beneath her feet. Attempting to take a step she realized that it indeed was. Like sand in an hourglass, the ground seemed to be emptying into an unseen hole, her feet already out of sight. Frantically trying to lift them and free herself, she felt herself sinking further and faster.</p><p>"Loki!" Sigyn screeched. "Help me!"</p><p>Sigyn had been going in the right direction. Loki, running towards the sound of her voice, soon sighted her. The ground seemed to be swallowing her up.</p><p>"Don't move!" Loki commanded her, racing towards her.</p><p>"Loki!" Sigyn screamed in terror as she sank further, now up to her waist in the dirt. Loki, careful to himself not become caught up in the quicksand-like trap got on to his hands and knees on what appeared to be solid ground and cautiously but quickly crawled towards her. Once within reach he extended one hand.</p><p>"Take it!" Loki exclaimed. Sigyn grabbed onto it with an iron grip that belied her small frame. Loki now rising to his knees, grabbing her outstretched arm with his other hand, pulled as hard as he could. He continued to do so as he rose to his feet. Moving backwards, the boy Loki pulling with all his might, Sigyn's lower half began to reemerge from the ground, dirt and the detritus of the forest floor falling from her skirt.</p><p>Sigyn came free from the ground with a final tug, Loki falling backwards to the ground, Sigyn along with him landing on top of him. Releasing his grip on her hand and arm, she releasing hers, both children sat up, Sigyn throwing her arms around Loki, burying her face in his shoulder. Placing his tightly around her, he held her for a few moments before rising to his feet, pulling her to hers with him.</p><p>"Close your eyes. Take hold of my hand, I'm going to bring you out. Don't let go." Loki told her. Sigyn nodded and did as Loki directed.</p><p>Loki, seated at Sigyn's bedside, opened his eyes removing his hand from where it had rested on her forehead. Sigyn's eyes slowly opened, gazing back at him.  Sensing something tucked under her arm, she looked down upon the doll.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Nahni...where..." Sigyn struggled to say, her voice quiet and weak. Loki saved her the trouble of finishing,</p><p>"Mother had her. She had kept her all these years, awaiting your return." Loki said, smiling down at the woman who's hand remained held within his own. He turned to the two einherjar standing sentry on both sides of the doorway. "Send word to my mother she's awakened." One of the einherjar turned stiffly, exiting the room.</p><p>"How is it you're here?" Sigyn asked in the same weak, raspy voice.</p><p>"Father granted a reprieve. It was thought you may not live."</p><p>"My father...he was here..." Loki realized by her statement that his future self had been right. Her fall from the balcony had not been an attempt to take her own life, but an attempt by another to do so.</p><p>"It was not your father. They know of your presence here. Your mind was possessed. You were led to throw yourself from the balcony. You must not be alone."</p><p>"You will stay with me? Or must you return to your cell?" Sigyn asked, fearing the answer to her second question.</p><p>"I will be with you awhile longer, then I must leave you for a time, but not to return to the dungeon. There is something I must do. If I succeed, my sentence will be commuted. We can be together...if you wish it." Loki paused for a moment, looking down at her hand held in his own. "I know you have doubts."</p><p>"You brought me back...let us start again, from this moment...put both our pasts behind us." said Sigyn. Loki raised her hand to his lips, kissing it.</p><p>"I will strive to be deserving of you, though I know I can only fail."</p><p>"That sounds incredibly boring." Sigyn said. Loki grinned.</p><p>"I do believe I said I'd fail."</p><p>"How about if you just stay out of the dungeon?" Sigyn said. The relatively short conversation appeared to have overly tired Sigyn and she seemed to be more aware the longer she was conscious of the pain her body was experiencing. Closing her eyes, her head seemed to sink farther into the pillow as she grimaced. Loki looked to her with concern.</p><p>"Sigyn..." Loki said, fearing she may again be slipping into unconsciousness.</p><p>"It hurts..." she said, the pain obvious in her voice. </p><p>"What pains you?" Loki asked. </p><p>"You should ask what doesn't.  Everything....tell me a story, as you used to do." Sigyn requested. Loki mentally rifled through his memory banks, attempting to recall one he had not told her before.</p><p>"It's been so long...I'm afraid I don't remember which ones I've already told you."</p><p>"It doesn't matter." Sigyn said. Loki realized that it was not so much the story she wanted to hear as his voice and to have a distraction from the pain. For a silent moment, he took in the sight of her lying there as she closed her eyes, Nahni tucked under her arm, reminiscent of his memories of many nights spent with her as a child. Before both drifted off to sleep in those days, he had told her stories his own mother had told him, that he had heard from others or that he had read...and of course a few he had made up. He had always had a quite vivid imagination.</p><p>"Very well." Loki said, thinking for a moment. "Long ago, during the days of my grandfather, Bor..."</p><p>Morning had broken over Asgard as the servant bearing the covered tray approached the door to Sigyn's chambers. The einherjar stationed at the door outside them, seeing him coming, turned, opening wide the door. Entering, the door closing behind him, the servant observed the room, daylight shining brightly from the balcony. The servant approached the entrance to the short corridor leading to the bedchamber.</p><p>As the servant attempted to cross from the room into the hall through the doorway, he jumped back with a yelp of pain, the covered tray falling from his hands to crash onto the floor, as flames erupted across the front of his body, scorching him, leaving his skin charred in places, his clothing smoldering.</p><p>"Did you think I'd not know you'd come?" Frigga said seemingly appearing out of thin air from the balcony. "Guard!" she called out. The einherjar outside the door, hearing himself summoned, quickly entered the room, drawing his sword.</p><p>Swiftly, the servant, now exposed as an angelic spy, turned towards the sword wielding einherjar and tossed a gold orb in his direction, the orb detonating in a bright flash of sparkling light sending the einherjar flying back through the door, sending the door itself with him. Sigyn's would-be assassin turned back to face Frigga.</p><p>Pulling a dagger from a sheath at his waist, the angelic assassin sent it hurtling towards Frigga. As it reached her, the illusion dissipated, the dagger flying out over the balcony before falling to the courtyard below. Frigga appeared behind the assassin as he struggled to process where she had gone, Frigga putting one arm around the assassin and with the other holding her own dagger to his throat.</p><p>Loki and Sigyn awakened simultaneously at the sound of the explosion, Loki jumping quickly from the bed on which he had lain himself down by Sigyn's side when fatigue had overcome him. Sigyn pulled herself stiffly to a sitting position, wincing, obviously not fully recovered.</p><p>"What was that?!" Sigyn asked fearfully, though she was reasonably sure she already knew the answer.</p><p>"Stay where you are!" Loki told Sigyn hastily as he ran towards the doorway. "Remain with her!" Loki ordered one of the sentries as the other accompanied Loki as he exited the room. Though the sentry had been assigned to keep watch over Loki himself, he obeyed, moving to the foot of the bed and drawing his sword.</p><p>"How many of you are there?  Who are they?" Frigga questioned the assassin as she held him against her, the dagger at his throat.</p><p>"I will tell you nothing!" the assassin exclaimed as the einherjar and Loki emerged through the doorway of the bedchamber. As they did so, a pink-violet light erupted behind Frigga, another angel exiting it with a sword, quickly thrusting it into Frigga's back, through her body and into the body of the captive she held facing away from her.</p><p>"Mother!" Loki cried as the angel behind Frigga withdrew the sword from her body, she and the other angelic assassin falling limply to the floor, the dagger dropping from her hand.</p><p>As the angel who had impaled Frigga went to once again engage the transport cylinder in his hand, he found himself blasted across the room and out across the balcony, falling over it as Sigyn had. Loki and the einherjar turned their head towards the doorless and blackened doorway of the chambers to witness Odin standing with Gungnir, his spear, in his hands, Heimdall standing behind him.</p><p>Stunned and speechless after witnessing the murder of his mother, Loki stood motionless as Odin entered the room, handing Gungnir off to Heimdall and lowered himself to the floor on his knees, gathering Frigga's lifeless body in his arms, cradling her and caressing her.</p><p>"Mother..." Loki said as the events that had just occurred finally sank in. Loki moved toward his father, falling to his knees across from him, taking Frigga's hand in his. Loki and Odin's eyes met, both expressing without words their shared grief.</p><p>In Odin's study gathered Thor, Heimdall, Odin, Sif and the Warriors Three, Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun along with Sigyn, she seated in a cushioned chair, obviously still in the process of healing after being so near death and weak, Loki, his past self, standing beside it, his hand on her shoulder, hers placed over his, Odin standing behind the table facing them. Not knowing now who could be trusted, who could be a spy and an assassin, even the einherjar usually present outside the room when Odin was within had been dismissed. Odin had even dismissed the einherjar assigned to guard Loki for the time being.  All appeared grieved, looking to their King.</p><p>"We do not know how many there may be among us. My Queen's sacrifice must not be in vain." Odin said.</p><p>"I have brought you only trouble and grief. I should return to Midgard." Sigyn said sadly.</p><p>"It would be difficult without the Bifrost and the Tesseract is now being used to repair it. There is a place here on Asgard. Few know of it and fewer how to enter. The accommodations are not that of the palace, but you will be safe there." Heimdall said.</p><p>"We will remain with her until the danger is past." Hogun said.</p><p>"You are still determined to do this?" Odin asked Loki.</p><p>"I must or she will never be safe anywhere but as a prisoner on the island...as I will be also back in my cell." Loki said.</p><p>"I have closed the portals I have knowledge of but obviously there is another, possibly more. I can show you to the location of one I am aware of and reopen it temporarily." Heimdall said to Loki.</p><p>"If you were to be captured, I would disavow your presence there." Odin warned.</p><p>"If I were to be captured it would not be long before I would be dead." Loki said, recalling what his future self had told him of Loriel and what was done to the enemies of Heven that fell into her hands. He felt Sigyn's hand grip his own as it rested on her shoulder.</p><p>Frigga's body rested on a bier in the presentation area before the throne covered in a long veil, a sword held in her hands. Loki knew it would remain there until her funeral that evening. As the group that had gathered in Odin's study left it and exited the corridor into the throne room, Loki's past self, his arm around Sigyn, supporting her as she walked, looked to his right towards it at the einherjar standing near it, gazing down on her lifeless form.</p><p>"Take her to mother's chambers. I will join you there shortly." Loki's past self said to Thor, the Warriors Three and Sif.  The two einherjar on either side of the doorway they would pass through to get there remained where Odin had told them to wait for him. </p><p>"Loki...don't do this to yourself." Sigyn said. They had already viewed her body before making their way to Odin's study. Sigyn knew how Loki blamed himself for not being quicker to reach Frigga and to react to the threat. It was only the peace and calm that her presence lent to him that had kept him from mentally and emotionally disintegrating.</p><p>"I will only be a moment." Loki said, releasing her to Sif, who put an arm around her in place of Loki as Loki moved off down the aisle towards his mother's body on the bier, the einherjar still standing in front of it, his back to them. Sif led Sigyn along with the others across the throne room and through the doorway on the other side.</p><p>Loki's past self came to stand beside his future self, disguised as an einherjar, at the bier. Both gazed down at Frigga's serene form under the veil.</p><p>"I failed her again. I did all I could think to do to prevent it." Loki's future self said quietly so as not to be overheard by the einherjar posted throughout the throne room. "Sigyn's father...my...our mother...The Ancient One said some events are inevitable. It seems she was correct."</p><p>"You knew this would happen? You knew mother was to die and you failed to tell me?!" Loki's past self asked, keeping his voice low but the anger in it apparent.</p><p>"She did not fall to the angels in my time. I thought to prevent it by what I've acquired. I made the mistake of thinking of events as they transpired in my own time. From this moment on I must forget everything I thought I knew."</p><p>"Not everything. I need your knowledge of Heven and this Loriel. With it we will avenge her. Heimdall will take us to the portal at first light tomorrow." Loki's past self informed his future self as both looked down upon their mother in her repose.</p><p>"You told him of me?" Loki asked.</p><p>"No. It's Heimdall." his past self said.</p><p>"I will be able to see her off this time. Last time father would not release me from my imprisonment." Loki turned from the bier. "Remain with Sigyn. Don't leave her side. Loriel will likely send others."</p><p>Loki's past self, two einherjar stationed behind him, Sigyn at his side, their hands clasped, watched mournfully with the rest of the Asgardians who had gathered under the stars as Frigga's body was released to drift on the water and then set alight before disintegrating into a mass of golden, sparkling light that drifted off into the void of space. Sigyn turned her head, looking upon Loki as he remained with his eyes fixed to the spot. Releasing her hand from his she put both her hands to either side of his head, turning his gaze to her, sending him a silent message with her eyes. No longer able to maintain his stoic demeanor, tears escaped from his eyes before he lowered his head, resting his face against her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him.</p><p>Loki watched his past self and Sigyn from among the crowd of einherjar in attendance. He contrasted the scene with his memory of how he had learned of his mother's death, the einherjar whose name he did not even know sent to inform him of the news in his cell. He had remained locked away, denied even the chance to visit her bier, to see her one last time.</p><p>Having returned to the palace, Loki and Sigyn stood on a balcony, Heimdall, Sif, Thor and the Warriors Three standing in an Asgardian skiff suspended before it. Heimdall as well as Hogun held torches in their hand. Loki picked Sigyn up in his arms, handing her across the balcony into Thor's. Soon after, he watched it draw away, disappearing out of sight in the darkness.</p><p>Fandral piloted the skiff where Heimdall directed him, coming to a stop near a ledge in front of a massive set of double doors in the side of the mountain carved with a representation of Yggdrasil. Those in the skiff except for Thor and Sigyn jumped down from the side onto the ledge, Thor picking Sigyn up and handing her down into the arms of Volstagg who set her on her feet.</p><p>"Heimdall and I must return to the palace. Father should not be alone this night and if there are others he may well be their next target." Thor said.</p><p>Heimdall, holding his torch in one hand, traced what appeared to be an ancient and magical engraving in the stone before the doors with the other, the doors slowly opening. Earlier in the day, Heimdall had brought bedding and other supplies for Sigyn and those who would remain with her. Sigyn and the rest of the party entered the massive cave lit by cauldrons of fire that would now serve as Sigyn's refuge until Loki's return, if he were to do so. Sigyn knew that what he planned to do must be done if she was ever to be safe and truly free, if they were ever to have a life together, but found herself almost wishing he was still in the dungeon. At least there he would have remained safe. When Loki had told her of his plan it had filled her with dread. Due to her fear for Loki as well as her guilt over Frigga's sacrifice she would not find sleep easy to come by though physically she was overcome with fatigue from all that had passed that day. Sigyn watched as the towering doors slowly closed.</p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Heimdall stood in the forest as the sun arose awaiting the arrival of Loki's past self who approached with two einherjar on either side of him. As they reached Heimdall, Loki came to a stop, the einherjar following suit, silently looking to Heimdall. Heimdall nodded his head to the einherjar and they turned their backs, returning the way in which they'd come.</p><p>"Where's your other?" Heimdall asked.</p><p>"Other? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Has something gone wrong with your sight that you're seeing double?" Loki said, though his mischievous expression gave away the lie.</p><p>"Right behind you." Heimdall felt the end of Loki's scepter tap him on the shoulder as he heard Loki's voice from behind him. Heimdall quickly turned to see Loki standing to his rear with a satisfied smile on his face, having successfully fooled the seer.</p><p>"This way." Heimdall said, slight irritation in his voice. He stepped forward almost toe to toe with Loki and stared at him before Loki stepped aside, gesturing with his arm for Heimdall to proceed. Both Lokis looked to each other with identical grins before following Asgard's gatekeeper further into the forest.</p><p>Passing into a clearing in the forest, both Lokis' eyes fell upon the place they had avoided since that day long ago, Bylgia's Pond. The grins that had been plastered to their faces faded as they were reminded of what had occurred there, those grim memories leading them to remember what had occurred the day before. Both Lokis recalled after arriving back at the palace that day with the man who now led the way how Frigga had fussed over Sigyn after her ordeal and assuaged her fears that she would be in trouble with her own mother over her soaked clothing and muddied shoes before escorting her home. She had returned a short time later in dry and clean clothing having been given permission to spend the night, most likely due to Frigga's intercession. Doing so was likely the only reason she had slept that night after such a trauma, both Lokis recalling how she had clung tightly to him, though he was sure he had done the same with her after nearly losing her, as the two had nestled into his bed at the end of the day. He had been sure to tell her a more happy, uplifting story of adventure devoid of any mention of death or anything frightening that night before both drifted off to slumber.</p><p>The three men traversed farther into the forest, to an area with rocky outcroppings overgrown with foliage and a small cave opening in the side of a hill. Ducking under the low entrance to the cave, Heimdall entered, followed by both Lokis. Heimdall reached the back of the cave and stood before the rough stone wall. Both Lokis watched as Heimdall extended his hand, placing it onto the wall, concentrating as he did so. A rainbow effect appeared upon the wall, expanding outwards from Heimdall's hand which he then removed from it, stepping back.</p><p>"If I don't return, tell Sigyn-" Loki's past self began to say to the gatekeeper.</p><p>"I will tell her what you wish her to know." Heimdall said.</p><p>"So you see into minds now as well?"</p><p>"No. She had the same look on her face you do now the day I sent her to Midgard. She had asked me then to tell you the same. However, I was unable to deliver her message, your mother having already placed her spell on you." Both Lokis' images changed as they disguised themselves as average angelic men, the scepter in Loki's hand disguised as a staff. "Good luck. I will watch for your return." Heimdall told them. Both Lokis stepped through the portal, vanishing in the swirling rainbow effect.</p><p>The two men exited the portal to find themselves in another forest. In the distance,daylight reflected off the crystalline buildings, creating a prism effect around the city. Both Lokis stood frozen in place as their eyes met those of the middle aged angelic woman standing a few feet in front of where they now stood facing them, her white hair elaborately braided. Both noticed the similarity in her deep blue eyes to another they knew.</p><p>"Your mother told me of your coming. She also told me that Vegeir is dead, that you've returned Sigyn to Asgard and she has been injured. How is she?"</p><p>"She is still healing, but she is well. She's safe." Loki's past self responded, obviously shocked at who stood before him and what she was telling him.</p><p>"I will take you to the palace. I must return before my absence is noticed." the woman said. "Hold onto me." Both Lokis stepped forward to Lailah, Sigyn's mother, each taking hold of one of her arms as she held a transport cylinder in her hand.</p><p>The three soon reappeared in Lailah's quarters in the palace. Loki's past self began to fire off questions as soon as they stepped out of the cylinder's light.</p><p>"Sigyn said that you abandoned them. How did you end up here? You're the true heir to the throne. Why didn't Loriel kill you?" </p><p>"I made a deal. I renounced any claim to the throne. I never had much interest in ruling which led me to seek the knowledge I now have that was valuable to her and has kept me alive. I thought I could do more to someday end Loriel from inside rather than wandering aimlessly around Midgard, but her control over the people is strong.  There are few that are immune to her influence. She has eyes and ears everywhere.  This is the first time I've used this since my arrival here." Lailah said indicating the cylinder. "I brought it with me when we were exiled to Midgard. If it were to be discovered in my possession, it wouldn't matter what I know."</p><p>"I was told you weren't allowed to take anything with you. How were you able to smuggle it off Asgard?" Loki's past self said. Lailah gave a sly smile.</p><p>"Do you really wish to know?" Both Lokis' blushing and awkward expressions making clear that they had reasoned out how it had been done. Lailah surmised there was no need for further explanation. "I must shortly make my way to the lab or my tardiness will be reported and I will be questioned."</p><p>"Where is Loriel now?" Loki asked.</p><p>"She will soon be taking her morning meal in the courtyard."</p><p>Loki, disguised as an angel, descended the white marble staircase with the gold fretwork railing and approached the guard stationed before the doors of Heven's vault. Before the guard had a chance to question him, Loki extended the scepter disguised as a golden staff, touching it to the chest of the guard. Loki grinned as he observed the effect in the eyes of the guard. The guard stepped aside, opening the doors to the vault, Loki entering as the guard closed them behind him.</p><p>Loriel sat at a table in the courtyard as two male angelic servants sat trays of food before her. Reaching out, she grabbed a red berry off of one tray, placing it in her mouth. The two servants returned to the door beneath the balcony as two others exited it, one carrying a pitcher and the other a covered tray. Approaching the table, the servant with the pitcher stood off to the side of her and slightly behind as he filled her glass. The other servant placed the covered tray before her.</p><p>"What's this?" Loriel asked, puzzled. Loriel's eyes suddenly widened as the servant that had borne the tray removed the cover to reveal the orb from Heven's vault, pulsing with light. Picking it up he held it before her as a black smoky mist began to escape from her body, drawn into the orb's now quickly strobing light.</p><p>Loriel's limp and lifeless body slid down in the chair as Loki's past self dropped his angelic guise, his future self already having done so. Loki's past self removed the crown from her head. Pulling the stone from its facets, he placed it on the table, his future self aiming the scepter at it, sending a powerful pulse of blue light from it into the stone, the stone shattering.</p><p>"It seems everything is easier the second time around. Perhaps I should consider giving Midgard another go." Loki joked to his past self.</p><p>"You've done it." A female voice said from above on the balcony. Both Lokis looked up to see an angelic woman in a low cut blue gown, her snow white hair flowing long and free over her shoulders. The woman descended the stairs and approached them.</p><p>"Mariel..." Loki said. Mariel looked to him in confusion.</p><p>"Do I know you?" she asked.</p><p>"No." Loki told her as she looked from him to his double. He could smell the familiar scent of her perfume.  He handed her the crown. "Give this to your new queen."</p><p>Sigyn had just awakened, rising from the cushion on which she had fitfully slept, still feeling somewhat stiff and sore. The others with her, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun and Sif had arisen long before her. Her stomach grumbling, it had been some time since she had last eaten, she was just making her way over to the small trunk containing food that Heimdall had left them when all within the chamber heard the sound of the doors slowly opening. Turning to face it, Sigyn's face lit up as she saw Loki standing with Heimdall.</p><p>"Loki!" Sigyn happily cried out.</p><p>Another figure stood behind the two she did not instantly recognize as the two men partially blocked her view and her eyes were adjusting to the light streaming in from outside the chamber. Loki stepped aside, the woman behind him in the long flowing blue gown, a tiara holding a large crystal on her head stepped forward.</p><p>"Mother?" Sigyn said in disbelief, recognizing the woman though she had aged somewhat since she had last seen her nearly two centuries before. Lailah held her arms out. Sigyn, as quickly as she could still recovering from her injuries, ran to the woman, falling into her arms. Lailah held her tearful daughter close for a few moments, then moved her away from her, holding her arms, examining her with a smile.</p><p>"Finally I see you once again as you truly are." Lailah said.</p><p>"You are queen now?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Yes, Loriel is contained, her minions have fled. The people are free." Lailah told her. Sigyn embraced her mother once again. "I never wished to rule. I will hold the throne until you're ready for it, then I will pass it to you." Sigyn pulled back from her mother once again looking to Loki before moving to him and throwing her arms around him.</p><p>"You're safe now." he told her.</p><p>Loki, holding the scepter in his hand, stood in the middle of Odin's study. Odin sat behind the ornately carved table looking down at a long silky brocaded blue shawl he held in his hand, feeling the smooth fabric between his fingers. Odin did not seem to notice Loki's presence as he sat deep in thought.</p><p>"Father..." Loki said. Odin, startled, looked up quickly and then stood, placing the shawl on the table. Loki approached, holding the scepter out across the table, touching it to Odin's chest. "I will soon be returning to my own time. After I am gone you will be released from your service to me. Before I go there is something we must discuss."</p><p>"Of what do you wish to speak?" Odin asked.</p><p>"The day will come when you will join mother in Valhalla. Even the great Odin will not live forever. Hela...your first born..."</p><p>Loki stood in his old chambers in the palace on his own balcony overlooking Asgard. He took in the sight, breathing in the air, doing his best to seer it into his mind, to hold onto the memory of his last moments there before he would return to his own time where Asgard was no more. His past self entered his chambers, seeing his future self standing on the balcony, his back to him, and walked across the room to join him.</p><p>"You will be returning home now?" Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"Mother was right. It's best if I leave before I start any more fires."</p><p>"I owe you a great debt." Loki's past self said.</p><p>"Protect her, keep her safe. Whatever you do, don't allow Sif to take her anywhere. I suppose though there would be no need for that now. But better safe than sorry."</p><p>"Is there anything more I should know before you go?" Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"Everything will be revealed in its own time." Loki told him. Loki picked up the scepter from where it leaned against the railing of the balcony, taking one last look out over Asgard before producing the modified cylinder in his hand. As he did so, the sky seemed to darken, the palace and a large part of Asgard surrounding it falling into shadow which was accompanied by a strange sound like an electrical hum. Both Lokis looked up, their mouths falling open in shock at the sight of the massive ship that hovered in the air above.</p><p>"Shit..." said both Lokis in unison.</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Both Lokis rushed from the balcony to the door of the chambers and into the corridor as they felt the palace quake at the first blast from the Sanctuary II.</p><p>"I had assumed this was far further in the future!" Loki's past self said.</p><p>"I'm afraid I may have inadvertently accelerated matters." Loki said, recalling his conversation with The Other, realizing his boast of wielding three of the six stones had been a mistake.</p><p>"Why, thank you! Thank you so much!" Loki's past self exclaimed sarcastically. "How did it play out in your time?" Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"You don't want to know." Loki answered.</p><p>"Obviously you survived. I would very much like to do the same! It would be helpful to know how you dealt with the situation."</p><p>"The scenario was very different. Let's leave it at that." Loki responded. The palace quaked again, though it was evident that Heimdall had now managed to raise the shielding around it. How long it would hold out against the firepower of the Sanctuary II was anyone's guess, but both Lokis surmised that it would not be an inordinate amount of time.</p><p>"So what's the plan then? " Loki's past self asked.</p><p>"I'm working on it." Loki told him.</p><p>"Work faster!" Loki's past self said as the palace shook from another energy blast.</p><p>'You're as capable as I! We have the same brain!" Loki said, irritated.</p><p>"Yes, but you've been in this situation before, or at least a similar one! You said everything is easier the second time around! I need to get Sigyn somewhere safe!" Loki's past self said.</p><p>"Where is she?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Mother's chambers..."</p><p>Loki's past self and his double, once again disguising himself as an einherjar, rushed down the corridor past other einherjar and a few panicked palace servants. Reaching Frigga's chambers, Loki's past self dismissed the einherjar who remained dutifully standing sentinel even amidst the attack and quickly entered. Sigyn, standing in the middle of the room, staring out towards the balcony, turned to him with fear in her eyes, the doll, Nahni in one arm, the sword Loki recognized as having once belonged to his mother, though she infrequently carried it, held in her other hand. The contrast would have been humorous were it not for the gravity of the situation.</p><p>"What's going on?!" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"We're under attack." Loki's past self told her.</p><p>"You don't say? Obviously!" Sigyn answered.</p><p>"It seems the past we had agreed to put behind us isn't finished with me yet. I'll take you to the vault. You'll be safe there."</p><p>"No! I'm tired of hiding! No more partings! Whatever happens, I'm staying with you!" Sigyn exclaimed. It was clear to Loki from her demeanor that she was determined to stand her ground on the subject.</p><p>"Do you know how to use that?" Loki's past self asked, indicating the sword in her hand. Sigyn looked down at it.</p><p>"Yes...somewhat..." Sigyn said. She had gone through the same training from a very young age as all Asgardian children, girls included, but that had been centuries ago, Loki well knew.</p><p>"Bring it, but I doubt Nahni will be much help. We will come back for her when this is over." Reluctantly, Sigyn placed Nahni in the chaise nearby.</p><p>The palace quaked again, followed shortly after by a second assault. Sigyn rushed to Loki, falling into his arms as the floor shook, Loki fighting to remain on his own feet, the sword still held in her right hand. As the shaking subsided, Loki wrapped his arms around her as Loki's future self stood by impatiently, now somewhat understanding Sif's reaction whenever he and his Sigyn had displayed affection in her presence.</p><p>"We must go! Now!" Loki said to his past self. Loki's past self looked at him in annoyance, raising his index finger in a gesture for him to wait. Moving Sigyn back from him, he looked into her eyes, coming to a decision, though by far not a difficult one for him to make.</p><p>"I know it's only been days. I don't know what's to happen. All I told you is true...since the first day mother brought you to me...Sigyn, will you have me? Will you be my wife?" Loki asked Sigyn who met his gaze with surprise at his sudden and unexpected query especially in the midst of such a crisis.</p><p>"I...you don't think it's too soon-." Sigyn began to answer when another blast shook the walls, seeming to lead Sigyn to a definitive answer. "Yes...yes! I will!" Sigyn answered. Grinning despite the situation, he passionately kissed her.</p><p>"Congratulations! Can we go now?" Loki's future self asked. Sigyn looked towards him, puzzled at the unusual manner of speaking to a prince of Asgard of the einherjar. '</p><p>"Excuse me for just a moment..." Loki's past self said to Sigyn, stepping over and taking hold of the arm of Loki in his einherjar disguise and steering him out into the corridor. Sigyn looked on in confusion.</p><p>"Is this really the time?" Loki asked his past self in a whisper.</p><p>"Seeing as I may soon find myself dead at Thanos' feet, I can't think of a better one! Unless you've come up with a plan, it will likely be the shortest engagement in Asgardian history!" Loki's past self hissed. "Besides, I already know she's to be my wife.  You did say some events are inevitable." Loki's past self said. Loki looked at his past self in silence for a moment.  Sigyn's father, his mother...was another event also inevitable? He looked at his past self, then through the doorway to Sigyn who remained standing in the same spot, the sword in her hand. Thinking of what his past self had just said about finding himself dead at Thanos feet, just as he had on the Statesman, though of course he didn't remember that part having only witnessed it through the memories Thor had shared, he turned his attention back to his double, a plan finally taking shape in his mind.</p><p>Loki's past self, carrying the scepter and Sigyn entered the throne room to see Odin, Heimdall, Sif, Thor and the Warriors Three gathered near the throne. The room shook as another energy blast hit its target, nearly knocking all present off their feet.</p><p>"It appears an old friend of yours comes calling." Odin said as his eye fell upon Loki as he neared them.</p><p>"Lower the shield. It will soon fall regardless." Loki told Heimdall. "I know what he wants. It's in the best interest of Asgard for me to give it to him."</p><p>"You mean the Tesseract." Thor said.</p><p>"Yes, along with the scepter...and this." Loki held out his hand, producing the containment unit housing the aether.</p><p>"You can't hand over three of the most powerful relics in the universe. There is good reason they have been kept separated." Odin said.</p><p>"He will have them regardless. We can only hope this way he'll refrain from murdering half the people of Asgard."</p><p>"Loki's right. Judging by the size of his ship, how many fighters it may hold and its weaponry, we are at a disadvantage." Hogun said, assessing the situation.</p><p>"To put it mildly. Did you see the size of that thing?" Fandral said in awe.</p><p>"Perhaps it needs to be that big to carry food for that many." Volstagg stated.</p><p>"Do you think of nothing else?" Fandral questioned.</p><p>"Of course I do. There's also drink." Volstagg answered.</p><p>"We are to roll over so easily?" Sif asked angrily.</p><p>"It's not surrender. Call it a compromise." Loki said.</p><p>"It sounds like surrender to me whatever you choose to call it!" she said hotly.</p><p>Another blast struck the shield surrounding the palace, the tremors resulting from it making it clear that the shield had collapsed.</p><p>"They will be here soon. I brought this upon us, I will go to meet him." Loki's past self said before looking to Thor. "Bring me the Tesseract from the vault." Thor looked to Odin who nodded. Thor turned, heading in the direction of the exit that led to the vaults.</p><p>"I'll go with you." said Sigyn to Loki.</p><p>"No, stay here with-" Loki began before Sigyn cut him off.</p><p>"Did you not hear me before? No more partings. Whatever is to be your fate, I will share it...or at the very least, if I can't share it, I will be at your side for it." Sigyn said. Loki looked from her to Odin.</p><p>"I've asked Sigyn to be my wife, if by some small chance I survive. She's agreed. I ask for your blessing." Loki's past self said. The others in the room looked on in amazement at the news, Sif's mouth dropping open.</p><p>"You have it." Odin answered, though by the expression on his face it was clear he did not expect to again see Loki alive, his approval being the last gift he could give to his son as he faced his death.</p><p>The sound of running footsteps echoed through the throne room as a large group of Chitauri soldiers flowed into into it aiming their large guns at the Asgardians, Moving Sigyn away from him with his arm, Loki took a step towards them.</p><p>"Take me to Thanos-" Loki said before being cut off by a blast from the weapon of a Chitauri soldier to the side of the soldiers gathered there. Thrown back by the blast, the scepter flying from his hand, the container housing the aether dropping from his other, Loki's body hit the floor a few feet away, lying motionless.</p><p>"Loki!" Sigyn cried, starting towards him, Sif rushing to her and holding her back as the Chitauri that had shot him advanced quickly towards his body, looking down at it and once again sending a blast from his weapon into it before walking over and retrieving the scepter.</p><p>"No!" Sigyn screamed, struggling against Sif, finally breaking free and running to Loki's side, falling to her knees beside him. Taking hold of his limp hand, she lifted it from the floor, holding it to her cheek as she looked tearfully down on his body, his skin already a pale deathly gray.</p><p>Thor appeared in the same doorway that led to Odin's study, the Tesseract held in both hands. A number of Chitauri rushed to him, surrounding him as he looked in shock and horror at his brother lying lifeless on the throne room floor, Sigyn at his side.</p><p>"He was going to give him what he wanted!" Sigyn screamed at the Chitauri, unconcerned now about any consequences to her of doing so. The Chitauri herded Thor towards Loki's body and Sigyn. Thor moved the Tesseract to his left hand, beginning to stretch out his right to summon Mjolnir.</p><p>"Don't!" Sigyn called to him. Thor lowered his hand. She stood, walking over to the aether and retrieving it before returning to look down on Loki.</p><p>"Take me to this Thanos." she said to the Chitauri.</p><p>In the plaza outside the palace, Ebony Maw walked in the open area between two large groups of Asgardians assembled on either side, some looking fearful, others angry and determined, children clinging to their parents. Swords lay about the plaza along with the bodies of einherjar warriors. Numerous Chitauri soldiers stood aiming their weapons at those gathered on either side.</p><p>"People of Asgard! Rejoice! The great Thanos has come to bring you salvation!" Maw announced to the crowd.</p><p>Without warning, a young boy pulled away from his mother, advancing on a Chitauri and kicking him in the leg and pummeling him with his small fists. The Chitauri reached out, grabbing the boy by the throat. A shadow fell over the Chitauri and the boy, a large purple hand reaching out and taking hold of the Chitauri's arm, forcing him to release the child. Thanos, a smile on his face, knelt down beside the boy who glared at Thanos.</p><p>"You're very brave, even for an Asgardian. You like to fight..." Thanos said to the boy before turning his head to see a large group of Chitauri exiting the palace, walking before them, Sigyn, the Aether in one hand, the Tesseract in the other, Thor carrying Loki's lifeless body. Thanos rose from the boy's side, putting a hand on his shoulder and moving him back towards his parents.</p><p>Thor and Sigyn reached the bottom of the steps and walked a few more paces as Thanos met them. Thor laid Loki's body out at Thanos feet. Chitauri soldiers circled around them. The Chitauri carrying the scepter reached down to Loki's throat, feeling for a pulse and looking for any sign of life, looked to Thanos and nodded, confirming his fate, before circling back to stand behind Thanos.</p><p>"What a shame. I was hoping to kill him myself." Thanos said, looking down at Loki. Raising his head he looked to Thor, then Sigyn and what she possessed. "Thor, son of Odin...and who might you be?" Thanos said to Sigyn as he examined her tear streaked face as she looked him directly in the face defiantly.</p><p>"Sigyn. Loki and I were to be married." Sigyn said.</p><p>"Strange he never mentioned you. You have my sympathy. I know how it feels to lose someone you love, to see your dreams die in front of you." Thanos reached out his long arm, caressing Sigyn's hair, she drawing back from his touch, "You're better off. A woman of your beauty and bravery can do far better than a traitor and a thief.  Sooner or later he would have stabbed you in your pretty back." Thanos told her. Sigyn stiffened at his words.</p><p>"You came for these. Take them.  Loki's dead.  You have everything you wanted.  Now leave us." Sigyn said. She held the Tesseract and the Aether out towards Thanos. As he reached out to take them, Loki's voice came from behind Thanos. </p><p>"Speaking of stabbing people in the back..." he said as the scepter tore through Thanos' chest, the crystal housing holding the Mind Stone replaced with a black hole grenade. Thanos looked down at it in shock as Thor, recognizing the grenade as some sort of weapon, though he wasn't sure of it's effects, put his arms around Sigyn, shielding her as they both fell to the ground, the Tesseract and the Aether falling from her hands and clattering on the stone plaza. The Chitauri that had impaled Thanos had dispelled his illusion, returning to his true form, Loki's future self, as he dived out of range of the grenade's effect. Loki's past self, his skin returned to its normal tone as he ended his death feint, rolled quickly away.</p><p>Thanos grasped at the grenade but too late as it detonated, sucking him into the gravity well it created, his large, imposing body seeming to fold in on itself as it was crushed into atoms. Ebony Maw, in a panic, activated a device in his hand, a beam of light falling over him, returning him to the ship hovering above. The Chitauri soldiers stood directionless, not sure what to do. Loki's past self, retrieving the Tesseract and the Aether, handed them to Sigyn as she and Thor rose from the ground.</p><p>"Get them away from here! Quickly!" He commanded a bewildered Sigyn as she attempted to process his resurrection as well as the fact that there were now two of him. She turned, rushing up the steps back to the palace. Thor held out his hand, Mjolnir swiftly appearing from the direction of the palace, flying past Sigyn and into his hand as she turned her head to watch. "Go!" Loki's past self called to her.</p><p>The Asgardians who had been gathered on both sides of the plaza rushed the Chitauri in front of them, picking up their discarded swords and those of fallen einherjar from the ground, joining Thor and Loki in the fray. Those with children pulled them along with them or carried them away from the fight. Sif, Fandral, Vostagg and Hogan rushed from the palace and down the steps to join the fight. Without anyone to command them, fighting in a disjointed and disorganized manner, many of the Chitauri fell, along with Asgardians hit by blasts from their energy weapons.</p><p>Thor and both Lokis, the past Loki with a sword he had retrieved from the ground and his future self with his daggers, battled together, cutting their way through the Chitauri, sending them fleeing or falling, some of whom were retrieved by the ship in the same light that had lifted Maw from the ground. Others fell as Thor sent Mjolnir flying, taking out multiple soldiers before returning to him. The Sanctuary II rose, making its way out of the atmosphere back into the void of space.</p><p>As the last Chitauri fell, pierced by Loki's past self wielding a sword, he turned to see Sigyn standing at the top of the steps where she had returned from stowing the Aether and Tesseract safely in the palace watching the end of the battle, Frigga's sword in hand. A lone Chitauri, disarmed, ran up the steps towards her.</p><p>"Sigyn!" both Loki's called out simultaneously. Sigyn thrust Frigga's sword out towards the Chitauri as he rushed up on her, piercing his heart. Sigyn withdrew the sword and kicked the Chitauri from under her gown's skirt, the soldier's body falling and rolling down the steps. Both Lokis' shoulders relaxed as they exhaled in relief, Loki's past self sprinting to the steps and up them to her side.</p><p>"You were dead..." Sigyn managed to say, looking at Loki's past self with confusion and wonder. Tossing his sword down and taking Frigga's from her hand and doing the same with it, Loki embraced her tightly to him. She looked out over the plaza at Loki's double, confusion evident on her face as well as the faces of Sif and the Warriors Three as they stared at Loki's future self as they stood among the bodies of the slain. </p><p>"Surprise!"  Loki's future self said jokingly, a bit uncomfortably as all eyes fell on him.</p><p>"As if one wasn't enough!" Volstagg grumbled. </p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki's past self's path now sufficiently smoothed, Loki prepared once again to return home to his own timeline, to his own Sigyn. He had again taken possession of the relic that would guarantee it remained so to remove it from that timeline. Of course his original intention behind taking possession of it turned out to be sadly for naught, seemingly having proved to be one of The Ancient One's "inevitable" events, though there was no way to be absolutely sure of that fact. Loki thought with sadness how in this timeline as well, his mother would not be alive to welcome her grandchildren, that was if this timeline's version of himself and Sigyn saw fit to provide any, though he was reasonably sure that would eventually be on their agenda. Once again resting his gaze over Asgard from the balcony he thought of all that this version of him and this version of Sigyn, along with others would never suffer. There would be no attack by Malekith and the Dark Elves, he would not die at the hands of Thanos, there would be no snap, nor once he had removed the Aether and the Mind Stone from this timeline would anyone else ever be able to gather all six stones for any purpose, and if his father did as he had advised him to do, there would be no return of Hela and no Ragnarok. Asgard would go on, most likely anyway, it was possible some other event could in the future occur leading to its demise, but at least it would exist far longer than it had in his timeline.</p><p>On earth the people would continue to live their lives blissfully ignorant of life in the other realms and elsewhere in the universe for awhile longer. There would be no Ultron, no Sokovia, again, no Thanos to snap half the population out of existence. Of course that also meant that there would be no Wanda Maximoff and no Vision as well, though he only knew of them through Thor's memories he had shared with Loki. It saddened him a bit that the change in circumstances here meant Sigyn would miss out on meeting one of her closest and dearest friends, Peter Quill, but perhaps it would happen some other way.</p><p>All he knew was that from this point on, this timeline's version of him and Sigyn's lives were their story to write. He would have no further involvement. No one of this timeline other than the few that knew of his appearance in it would ever know of his contributions, and even they would be unable to fully grasp them not having experienced the events of his timeline. He was in a sense a savior yet again to so many that would otherwise have fallen in the coming days, months and years, though they would never know that was to have been their fate. Strangely for Loki, he was at peace with that. He knew he still had other loose ends of the whole episode to tie up once he returned to his timeline, but the heaviest lifting appeared to be over. It was hard for him to believe that this had all started with a simple transaction to obtain what he had thought at the time was a harmless rock, an inanimate link to his lost home. It was definitely a lesson learned and one he fully intended to pass on to his own children.</p><p>Having already said his goodbyes to his past self and Sigyn and the others that were now aware of his existence, including those who he knew he would never see in life again, he produced the modified cylinder. The balcony now stood empty.</p><p>"Steinn...can you hear me?" the disfigured man lying restrained in the bed heard his name as his consciousness fully rose to the surface for the first time since his unsuccessful attack on Loki. He felt somewhat different, perhaps lighter in a sense. The feeling of his mind and heart having been weighed down as if under a mass of heavy blankets at least partially having lifted. The flame of resentment, of anger, though not wholly quenched, burned low, no longer a conflagration.</p><p>As he attempted to open his eyes, unused to the light after an extended time in darkness, he felt the sensation of a strong hand gripping his. His brain struggled to put together the identity of the voice, who it could possibly be that would be by his bedside as he recovered from...what exactly was he recovering from? He couldn't recall. His consciousness attempted to put together the pieces of disparate flashes of memories. Finally they all fell into place as he slowly opened his eyes, squinting them as they adjusted to the light.</p><p>"Loki Odinson..."</p><p>"Yes, old friend."</p><p>"You're not my friend.  I'm not sure you ever were." Steinn replied.</p><p>"It's true.  I forfeit that designation long ago. I have since come to regret it."</p><p>"You've never regretted anything in your life."</p><p>"There are many things I have now come to regret." Loki said, bowing his head. "I knew what they did to you, but I didn't really know, not until I saw it through your eyes."</p><p>"That changes nothing." Steinn said.</p><p>"No, it doesn't.  There is a place...the people there can help to change it, they'll teach you how to heal your body and your mind, if you're willing. We have much to discuss. First however..." Loki said before releasing his grip on Steinn's hand and removing the restraints that had bound him.</p><p>"You trust me?" Steinn asked.</p><p>"If you still wish to kill me, do it, though my death will also change nothing." Loki said to him. Producing a dagger, he put it into Steinn's now free hand and gripping Steinn's wrist, moved Steinn's hand so that Steinn held the point of the dagger to Loki's throat. Steinn and Loki stared at each other for a few tense, silent moments. Finally, Steinn released his grip on the dagger, dropping it, Loki catching it as it fell.</p><p>"Tell me of this place." Stein said.</p><p>Bruce Banner's gargantuan green form stood once again in front of a computer monitor in his lab looking over the data on the screen. A smile crossed his face, signifying that what he was seeing was to his liking.</p><p>"That's more like it. I knew it!" he said to himself.</p><p>"I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I've returned, as promised." he heard Loki's voice say from behind him. Banner turned his head, looking over his shoulder, his eyes falling on Loki, the modified cylinder in his hand, in his other hand he held that of a young, dark haired boy. "I apologize for the delay."</p><p>Banner turned the rest of the way around, a broad smile on his face as he looked down at the boy who stared up at him in awe.</p><p>"Hey, buddy." Banner said approaching Leiffrid and kneeling down, extending his large green hand.</p><p>"What manner of monster are you?" Leiffrid asked.</p><p>"Leiffrid-" Loki began to admonish his son for his impolite question, though posed innocently enough. Banner chuckled.</p><p>"It's alright." Banner said to Loki then looked back to Leiffrid, "I'm not sure myself. All I know is I'm the only one you're ever gonna meet. I'm Bruce. So your name's Leiffrid. It's nice to meet you. I guess you had quite an adventure."</p><p>"I was lost, then the nice lady found me, then father came for me." Leiffrid said. Loki looked down at his son questioningly. His past self had made no mention of there being another with him when he'd located him. He had not yet talked at length with Leiffrid about his experience, he and Sigyn having both thought it better to distract him from it for a time by returning to his normal routine and insuring he once again felt safe before discussing the subject in any detail.</p><p>"I'm glad you're back home safe and sound." Banner said, returning his attention to Loki. "You can't deny he's your son." Banner said, commenting on Leiffrid's favoring of his father's features. Leiffrid had left his father's side and now wandered the lab, looking at the equipment curiously.</p><p>"Why would I want to?" Loki asked, puzzled.</p><p>"Oh...no...didn't mean it that way.  I mean he looks like you."</p><p>"Oh...yes. Seeing as I was adopted, the same could not have been said of myself and my father, or my mother for that matter, though I wasn't made aware of the fact for some time. As a child I thought little of it."</p><p>"I don't have kids myself, but I've always thought it's best to be honest with them. My parents always were with me, as far as I know anyway." Banner said.</p><p>"I tend to agree." Loki responded. A clanging, metallic sound came from the side of both of them, both men turning their heads to see Leiffrid fiddling with a piece of scientific equipment, having accidentally knocked off parts of it onto the counter on which it sat. "Leiffrid-" Loki began again to admonish the boy, moving in his direction. Banner walked over, reassembling the lost parts.</p><p>"I'm sorry." Leiffrid said.</p><p>"It's ok. It's hard not to touch when you see all this cool stuff. It all looks like it'd be fun to play with...it is actually. Hey, would you like to play a game?" Banner asked. Leiffrid nodded. Loki watched, amazed at Banner's ease in relating to the child seeing as he had none of his own and his imposing appearance. Banner led Leiffrid over to a computer station and pulled up what looked to be some sort of scientific themed game on the screen and instructed Leiffrid on how to play it before returning to stand near Loki.</p><p>"You have it?" Banner asked. Loki produced the modified cylinder and handed it over. Banner walked with it over to what appeared to be a workbench, grabbing a small tool and with his hulking back to Loki, went to work. As he did so, Loki caught sight of a television on the wall tuned to a news channel. He watched as scenes accompanying stories of various violent crimes flashed on the screen. After a few moments, Banner rejoined Loki, handing him back the original cylinder, holding the rectangular device that had been attached to it in his large hand before closing his hand over it, crushing it. "Well, that's that." Banner looked to Loki who continued to stare at the television, appearing lost in thought and tired, a hint of dark circles under his eyes. "You alright?"</p><p>"I'm fine. Why do you ask?"</p><p>"I dunno...you look a little tired..."</p><p>"I suppose I am."</p><p>"Did I win?" Leiffrid called from the computer. Loki and Banner walked over looking down at the screen where what appeared to be a representation of a molecule appeared. Banner looked astonished.</p><p>"How old is he again?" Banner asked, knowing that Asgardian life spans and rate of aging differed from humans.</p><p>"Four. Up to now he has aged at the same rate as mortal children."</p><p>"Smart kid." Banner said, still in awe.</p><p>"He comes by it naturally. As you say, I can't deny him." Loki boasted.</p><p>Loki and Leiffrid stepped out of the light of the cylinder back into the great room of the royal chambers, Loki holding Leiffrid's small hand, the cylinder in his other. Turning to Leiffrid, he knelt before him, putting a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>"Leiffrid...this 'nice lady' you spoke of that was there with you..."</p><p>"Frigga...like sister. She told me stories about you when you were little and about your father too. She kept those things away from me and showed me how. She taught me to make it so you could see me better so you could find me." Leiffrid explained. Loki stared into his son's eyes, hoping he didn't notice the tears beginning to collect in his own. "Can I go play with Zosime now? " Leiffrid asked. Loki stood, extending his hand to his son once again.</p><p>"Of course."</p><p>"I'm going to marry her someday." Leiffrid said as they walked towards the door.</p><p>"You have much growing up to do before then. You both will meet many others."</p><p>"But I already know." Leiffrid said. Loki thought back to the day his mother had introduced him to Sigyn.</p><p>"Perhaps you do." Loki said as Loki opened the door, leading Leiffrid out into the corridor.</p><p>Loki sat alone in the plush armchair in the great room of the royal chambers later that night, the light in the room turned down low, almost imperceptible. Loki looked more tired than he had in Banner's lab, the circles under his eyes becoming darker and more noticeable. He looked down into the palm of his hand at the blue round crystal containing the yellow stone that rested in it that he had removed from the scepter, staring at it. He had deposited the Aether in Heven's vault for safekeeping upon his return until he had the opportunity to move it to what Loki planned to be it's final resting place. However, he had felt a compulsion to keep the stone on his person, hidden magically out of sight as he had once done long ago with the Tesseract.</p><p>"Loki?" Sigyn's voice said from behind him. Quickly he stowed the stone away once again. Sigyn, dressed in a long nightgown covered by a silky robe reached him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright?"</p><p>"Yes, I'm fine. Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Loki said, sounding irritated.</p><p>"You usually don't wait this long to join me. I thought maybe something was wrong."</p><p>"No, I was just thinking." Loki said, Sigyn's hand still resting on his shoulder.</p><p>"About what?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Must I tell you everything?" Loki asked, perturbed. Sigyn, taken aback at his response, was silent for a moment.</p><p>"No...if you don't want to talk about it.." Sigyn said calmly, worry in her voice at Loki's unusual demeanor.</p><p>"Today, on Midgard...I was watching the television...just for a few moments...but in just those few moments...nothing has changed. It's the same as it ever was even despite knowing what they now know, about us, the universe, after Thanos...they slaughter each other in droves...you would think as short as are their lives they would respect life more."</p><p>"I know. It has always been so. Hopefully someday they will realize how pointless it is. Come to bed.  You look tired." Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Soon." Loki answered. Sigyn turned, retracing her steps back to the doorway leading to the bedchambers and passed through it. Loki sat for another moment, contemplating, then leaned forward, grabbing a sheet of paper from a stack sitting on the table between the chair and the chaise across from it and grabbing a pen from beside it, began to sketch.</p><p>Mariel opened the door to her chambers to see Loki standing outside. He held a small, flat box in his hand.</p><p>"Loki...come in. I'm almost ready." Mariel turned, Loki following her inside, closing the door behind him. Mariel applied her perfume to her wrists, rubbing them together, before stowing the bottle away again in a small, gold bag. Another larger bag sat on the floor near her feet. Mariel tucked the smaller bag into the larger bag before turning back to Loki. The scent of her perfume reached him. Mariel looked slightly curiously at Loki noticing something off about him, the expression on his face, the slight dark patches under his eyes. "The Queen did not accompany you?"</p><p>"She awaits you in the throne room. I have something for you. A parting gift, though I hope the parting will not be long." Loki said. Mariel looked to Loki and the box in his hand.</p><p>"What is it?" Mariel asked. Loki handed the box to her. Opening it, Mariel's eyes came to rest on a gold necklace, upon it a pendant made of milky white crystal like moonstone. 

</p><p>"I commissioned it to be made for you.  The stone is a remnant of the one that once adorned Loriel's crown.  I thought it symbolic."  Loki explained. </p><p>"Yes.  It's lovely. Thank you." Mariel said, as she continued to look upon it. Loki reached out, taking the box back from her hands.</p><p>"Allow me." Loki said, removing the necklace from the box. Mariel turned her back to him before he placed it around her neck. She looked down on the pendant, taking it between her fingers, feeling the smoothness of the stone.  Mariel turned back towards Loki, still looking down at the pendant she held between her fingers.</p><p>"Are you certain you wish to go?" Loki asked. Mariel, again surprised, looked up at Loki.</p><p>"I think it best. I'm looking forward to it. Perhaps what I learn there I can use to help others when I return."</p><p>"I've been thinking...perhaps we could come to an arrangement." Loki said. Mariel looked puzzled.</p><p>"What do you mean?" Mariel asked. Loki drew nearer to her, breathing in the scent of her perfume.</p><p>"It's not at all unusual. Even my father it seems...."</p><p>"I don't understand..." Mariel said, confused.</p><p>"I think you do.  You've made your feelings quite clear." Loki replied. Mariel stood in stunned silence for a moment as what Loki was inferring became clear to her, Loki only now inches from her.</p><p>"No....I couldn't...we couldn't....she's my Queen and also my friend...you would never do such a thing.  I know your love for her."</p><p>"I have more than enough to share." Loki said. Before Mariel could say more, she found herself in Loki's arms, his lips meeting hers.</p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sigyn sat on Heven's throne, Sariah standing beside her, a bright smile on both women's faces as they listened to a choir of young angels assembled in the presentation area before her singing their version of Buddy Holly's song "It's Raining In My Heart." Sigyn had chosen the song for them, as she always did at least one for their monthly appearance before her. It wasn't the most uplifting song, the lyrics more than a bit melancholy, but Sigyn had always thought it a pretty one. Hearing it once again had brought to mind her island and the home she once had there that now sat in ruins, rendering it a fitting choice. As they finished, she rose, stepping down from the dais on which the throne sat.</p><p>"That was wonderful. Thank you so much." she said to the children and the adult angel choir master that accompanied them before they bowed their heads. The choir master led the choir out of the throne room. Sigyn looked towards the door of the throne room after it had closed behind them. Loki and Mariel were to have met her there before Loki escorted her to Earth to the Sanctum in New York, Dr. Strange taking her to Kamar-Taj from there by a more direct route than the one he had followed years before. Loki had taken the same trip with Steinn the week before.</p><p>Sigyn had been relieved to see him go, though she had felt guilty for her feelings at the same time. She was not nearly as pleased to see Mariel depart. She knew that Mariel had been stressed as of late, even before Hela's appearance and her attempt to help Steinn, and was happy that she was taking time for herself, however not knowing how long she would be gone was troubling as she depended on her senior lady of the court for so much.</p><p>"I have some time before my next audience. I'll return shortly." Sigyn said to Sariah, who was to replace Mariel for the time being. Sariah nodded in acknowledgement before Sigyn made her way to the doors of the throne room.</p><p>Mariel found herself returning Loki's kiss before reason overtook her once again.</p><p>"No...I can't...we mustn't." Marial said, putting her hands to Loki's chest and moving him slowly away from her.</p><p>"Is this not what you wished for?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Not in this way." Mariel answered. The chime of the door sounded, Mariel literally saved by the bell as it gave her a reprieve from the situation and the confusion and battle taking place within her. Walking around Loki, Mariel made her way to the door, opening it to reveal Sigyn standing in the corridor outside it. Loki glanced at Sigyn before looking away.</p><p>"My Queen...I was just on my way to see you." Mariel said. Sigyn stepped inside, looking to Loki, noticing his averted eyes. He being with Mariel alone was not an issue for her. Since he had overcome, for the most part, his discomfort in her presence, he had often been alone with her for various legitimate reasons, but Sigyn couldn't help but sense that there was something different about this particular occasion due to the demeanor of both of them. Sigyn turned her attention back to Mariel, unable to help noticing the necklace she wore.</p><p>"I haven't seen you wearing that before. It's beautiful." Sigyn asked. Mariel followed Sigyn's gaze to the necklace.</p><p>"Loki gave it to me just now. I thought it was a gift from both of you."</p><p>"No...I knew nothing about it." Sigyn said, looking again to Loki.</p><p>"I wanted it to be a surprise. I was afraid if I mentioned it you might accidentally spoil it." Loki explained.  His explanation made no sense to Sigyn.  He knew well that she could keep such a secret.</p><p>"I should be going." Mariel said.</p><p>"I will await your return. Sariah is stepping into your shoes. You need not worry about anything here." Sigyn said.</p><p>"She is more than capable." Mariel assured her before the two women embraced. Mariel turned to walk back to grab her bag as Loki picked it up from the floor.</p><p>"Let's be on our way." Loki said. Mariel stood next to him, seeming reticent to be so near and to take his arm. Sigyn looked with concern to the two as Loki held a transport cylinder in his free hand, the two disappearing in its light.</p><p>Having delivered Mariel to the Sanctum and into the care of Dr. Strange, Loki disguised himself in the stylish dark clothing he usually wore during his sojourns to Midgard, though with the exception of New Asgard, they were infrequent, walking away from the Sanctum and down the streets of New York. As he progressed along the sidewalk among the crowds that seemed to all be in a rush as they made their way in both directions, Loki strolled more casually taking in the sights and observing the people. A police vehicle, its lights on and sirens blaring, went by, fighting its way through the traffic followed shortly after by an ambulance. Men and women, young and old, walked by and around Loki, some bumping into him as they did so without a glance or apology of any sort. Many appeared transfixed as they stared at the screens on their phones, Loki wondering how they even knew where they were going. Almost all of them seemed to be existing in their own bubble, detached and unconcerned with the world around them and the other people in it.</p><p>Loki continued until he reached his destination, looking up at at Stark Tower.</p><p>Sariah entered the royal chambers escorting Xenia inside.</p><p>"Xenia, come in. Please, sit down." Sigyn said to Heven's seer and gatekeeper she had summoned to her presence. Sariah turned and exited. Xenia took note of the worried expression on Sigyn's face as she made her way to the chaise and sat down across from Sigyn sitting in the armchair.</p><p>"My Queen. You look troubled."</p><p>"I am. It's Loki. Ever since his return...I don't know...something's not right. I'm not sure how to explain it. He's just not been himself. Have you seen anything strange? Anything at all?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"No I have not, but I am not in the habit of violating the privacy of others unless it's necessary, especially that of my King and Queen."</p><p>"I think it's become necessary." Sigyn said.</p><p>"It may merely be a reaction to all that's happened. Many are still dealing with the trauma of what took place. He likely feels himself responsible. Perhaps with time he will become more like himself again."</p><p>"I hope you're right." Sigyn said, rising from the chair, Xenia following suit.</p><p>"I will report back to you if I discover anything." Xenia said before turning and walking to the door, Sigyn following.</p><p>Tony Stark's apartment in Stark Tower stood dark but for the sunlight streaming in through the glass along the outside wall, the same glass Loki had once thrown Stark through. Stark nor Pepper had spent much time there after Thanos' snap, instead retreating to their peaceful hideaway far from the bustle of the big city and the memories of those who had been rendered dust. Pepper now only made infrequent visits since Stark's death though a cleaning crew regularly kept the dwelling ready for her if she were to decide to utilize it even for just a night.</p><p>Loki made his way to the bar, the same one Stark had stood behind that day long ago as he poured himself a drink, offering one to Loki as well. Loki had wondered since then if Stark really would have given him one had he accepted. Knowing Stark, he would have, thought Loki. Bottles and decanters of liquor still sat untouched. Perusing the selection, Loki chose one and putting a glass on the bar, poured himself the drink he had denied himself that day. Carrying it to the wall of glass, Loki looked out over the city once more as he sipped his drink. Stark had been right, he had stocked only the best...or at least the best Midgard had to offer.</p><p>Having finished his drink, Loki walked out onto the long unused platform extending from the building over the city. He peered down at the mass of humanity and what struck him as best described as "organized chaos" below. Lifting his gaze he took in the expanse of the city stretching out as far as he could see. All the cacophony of a major urban area reached his ears from below...the honking of car horns, the sounds of thousands of vehicle engines and construction equipment, the sirens of police and others responding to crimes and emergency situations. It all mixed together in a strange auditory soup.</p><p>Standing on the platform just as he had done that day as he had watched his army of Chitauri attack and lay waste to the metropolis below him, he held out his hand as a new scepter materialized in his grip, the illusion of Midgardian clothing transforming into a long black and green tunic. The scepter was almost identical to the one he once possessed with only a few slight cosmetic alterations he had himself added to the design that he had sketched and passed onto the artisans. The blue crystal housing held within the scepter glowed with the power of the stone that rested within it.</p><p>Sigyn entered the royal chambers, baby Frigga in one arm, holding Leiffrid by the hand. Once within the great room, Leiffrid released his mother's hand beginning to run towards the entrance to the bedchambers and his bedroom where his toys were kept.</p><p>"Leiffie...wait a minute." Sigyn said to him. Leiffrid turned, looking questioningly to his mother. "I want to ask you something."</p><p>"Alright." Leffrid said, walking back towards Sigyn.</p><p>"When you were in...that place...the place Hela sent you, did you or your father bring anything from there back with you?"</p><p>"No." Leiffrid answered.</p><p>"Do you know why your father might be acting strange?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Maybe it's the new rock. Maybe there's someone in it too." Leiffrid said.</p><p>"What new rock?" Sigyn asked, attempting to sound calm though dread coursed through her hearing Leiffrid's answer.</p><p>"The blue one. I saw father holding it. He said I'm not supposed to talk about it."</p><p>Loki stood at the edge of a large open field where angelic and some Tartaran warriors that had joined their ranks sparred with each other. Another angelic warrior wearing an insignia of rank on his uniform stood beside him. Loki noticed Aegeus, the young Tartaran, among the others, sparring with a sword.</p><p>"Our losses were significant but we have been only slightly weakened by it, though had we not withdrawn when we did..." the angel standing beside Loki told him.</p><p>"Aegeus, how is he?" Loki asked.</p><p>"He's an able fighter. He's good with a spear. He will do well."</p><p>"If I had need of an army, how soon could they be ready?" Loki asked.</p><p>Having left the training field, Loki now stood in Heven's vault in front of the pedestal where he had placed the Aether. Placing his hand upon the container in which it rested, he sensed the power within it. He had mused long ago what he could do with such power flowing through his veins only to be told by his brother that it would consume him. If he could only learn to harness it, to control it, as Malekith had done...or if he could learn the secret to converting it to its solid form, he could add its power to what he already possessed within the scepter. But no, for the time being he was wise enough to know that what he didn't know could spell his doom. If only it could speak to him, tell him its secrets. Perhaps in time it would do so. For now however, it would remain where it was. Loki turned from it, walking back past the other relics to the vault's doors.</p><p>Sigyn appeared in the Sanctum in New York before the wide stairway and looked around the apparently empty room of relics whose uses she did not know nor had time to contemplate.</p><p>"He left some time ago. Strangely enough, he used the door." Dr. Strange's voice came from behind her. She turned to face him.</p><p>"I need your help."</p><p>"Heven seems to have become a recruitment center for Kamar-Taj."</p><p>"No...it's Loki. He's brought something back from the past." Sigyn explained.</p><p>"Please tell me it's not Disco...or plaid pants."</p><p>"What's wrong with Disco?"</p><p>"You're serious?" Strange replied.</p><p>"This isn't a joke! I think he's in trouble...the rest of us may be too."</p><p>"What is it?" Strange asked, obviously nervous about the answer.</p><p>"A stone of some kind."</p><p>"Surely he wouldn't have been that foolish...wait, I forgot who we were talking about for a moment, never mind."</p><p>Loki had returned to the apartment in Stark Tower once again standing behind the bar. He had since his arrival familiarized himself with the layout and accouterments of the space. Having discovered Stark's audio files, Loki had randomly chosen a play list, music now filling the room just as it often did in his home on Heven, (watch?v=XXx6RDzR6eM) the song "Let's Stay Together" now playing as he stood facing the bottles and decanters on the shelf as he removed one from it, an empty glass sitting on the bar behind him along with the scepter.</p><p>"Loki. What are you doing here?" Sigyn's voice said from across the room. Loki turned, momentarily startled, but quickly recovering, pouring himself another drink from a crystal decanter.</p><p>"At the moment, I'm having a drink. Would you like one?" Loki asked as if nothing were amiss. "Seeing as the former tenant won't be returning, it seems a shame for it to go to waste."</p><p>"I've just spoken with Mariel." Sigyn informed him. Loki's expression became stony as he sat the decanter on the bar.</p><p>"I suppose in that case I should make yours a double." Loki said. He obtained another glass from under the bar and poured a second drink, sliding it across the bar towards Sigyn as she approached. "What stories has that lascivious strumpet been filling your head with?"</p><p>"Interesting ones to say the least.  What is that?" Sigyn asked looking at the scepter. Loki, taking a drink from his own glass, sat it down and picked up the scepter.</p><p>"It's my own design. I've made a few improvements over the original." Loki said, looking at the scepter, admiring it. Sigyn also examined it and the round blue crystal as he held it in his hand. "Are you going to drink that?" Loki asked, looking to the drink he had poured Sigyn. Sigyn grabbed the glass, raising it to her lips and tipping her head back, downed it all in one swallow before sitting the glass back on the bar. Loki stared at her in shocked silence for a moment.</p><p>"You didn't answer my question. What are you doing here?" Sigyn asked again. Loki eyed the expansive room.</p><p>"Setting things right. Stepping out of the shadows I have lived under for too long, first Thor's, now yours. On Heven I am king in name only. I rule by your leave. The people of Midgard think themselves free. I will put paid to the lie they tell themselves. Fitting that in this room was where it all ended and where it will now begin anew."</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"And how exactly do you plan to accomplish this? " Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Heven's legions are now mine to command." Loki informed her. Sigyn looked down at the empty glass in front of her and pushed it back across the bar as another song began to play. ( watch?v=zbC-Z4NFZss).</p><p>"I think I'll have another." Sigyn said. Loki looked at her with astonishment. He knew well that Sigyn was not much of a drinker. Loki lifted the decanter and poured another drink into her glass, sliding it back to her. Lifting it, she took a drink before sitting it down. She looked into his eyes, at the expression on his face. "I know, it's not like me, is it?" she said before taking another drink. "Funny, I was thinking the same about you."</p><p>"If you mean I'm not the milquetoast I'd become as your leige man, you're correct. I was never meant to be a mere appendage. I have far loftier aspirations. I've been reawakened to my true purpose." Loki answered. "My brother and his compatriots only delayed for a time the inevitable. I will finally fulfill my destiny and in doing so bring peace to this wretched world."</p><p>"My father used to say that true peace, the kind that lasts doesn't come at the end of a sword. That's why he chose to become a diplomat."</p><p>"What would a man who beat his own wife and child know of peace? Your father was nothing but a doltish drunkard." Loki said, ironically pouring himself another drink and downing a long swallow.</p><p>"His fear, his pain, his sense of loss led him to become someone he was not. The same happened to you once. This isn't you, it's the stone. Bruce Banner told me it's like a computer program. In a sense Thanos programmed it to control you in order to use you to get what he wanted."</p><p>"Thanos is dead." Loki said. "No one controls me. Not Thanos. Certainly not you. I am my own master." Loki said.</p><p>"I've never tried to control you, I've never wanted to. I've always been loyal to you." Sigyn said to him. "If I wasn't I wouldn't be here now. Give me the scepter, the stone. I can take it far from here." Sigyn stood, walking around the bar to stand in front of Loki, putting the palms of both hands on his chest, sending all the peace and calm she could muster to pass from them into him. "Come home. Come back to me, come back to your children. They need you. I need you. I love you. Please, let me help you." Sigyn pleaded. Loki stood silent for a moment, his features appearing to soften before they hardened once more.</p><p>"Sentiment..." Loki sneered before walking around her to the middle of the room, his back to her. Sigyn walked back around the bar, standing in front of it to face him. He turned to face her. "I don't need your help. I don't need you. I've never needed anyone. I'll go it alone as I always have." Loki said, his voice hard and cold. Sigyn fought back tears. Though she knew they weren't truly his words, they cut deeply nonetheless. As the song playing ended, silence fell upon the room as Sigyn looked to her feet before looking back to Loki. The next song began to play as she seemed to come to a decision. ( watch?v=YuKfiH0Scao&amp;list=RDYuKfiH0Scao&amp;start_radio=1)</p><p>Sigyn removed a ring from her right hand, her coronation ring. Walking up to Loki, she reached out, taking his left hand, moving it out in front of him palm up and placed the ring into it.</p><p>"The throne of Heven...it's yours. I never wanted a crown or a throne." Sigyn told him. "All those centuries, all I really wanted was you." Sigyn removed Frigga's wedding ring, now hers, from her left hand and placed it into Loki's palm next to her coronation ring. "The children and I will start a new life elsewhere, far from Heven or Midgard." Loki stared down at the two rings in his hand as Sigyn kissed his cheek before turning and walking back to the bar. Loki remained standing where she had left him, continuing to silently look down into the palm of his hand. Loki looked up to her as she grabbed the half filled glass that she had left there and downed the rest of the drink, placing the empty glass back onto the bar. In her other hand she now held a transport cylinder. " I hope when Midgard falls before you it's everything you hoped it would be."</p><p>"Wait-" Loki began to say as she vanished in the glow of its light. Stunned back into silence, Loki looked back down at the rings in his hand before closing it around them, opening his hand again to reveal it empty. Loki's expression transformed into one of anger. With a raging, primal cry, Loki pointed the scepter towards the bar, sending a blast of energy from the scepter towards it, the shelf and bar exploding.</p><p>Loki looked on in surprise as thick strands of white webbing wound themselves around the scepter, it quickly thereafter pulled upwards from his grasp. Looking up, Loki saw the Avenger whose existence he knew of only through the memories his brother had shared with him. Spiderman, attached to the ceiling by his feet and one hand, held the scepter in the other.</p><p> "Hi...uh..Mr. Loki...your majesty...sir..." Parker said as he looked down at the God of Mischief and Heven's King.

</p><p>"Insect!" Loki cried.</p><p>"Actually spiders aren't insects. They're arachnids. You ever see that movie, Arachnophobia...that scene where all the spiders come out of the sink? I was afraid to go in the bathroom for a month! Seems sorta ironic now." Peter Parker said.</p><p>"Either is equally crushed under my boot!" Loki exclaimed as he sent a blast of energy from his raised palm towards him. Spiderman leaped away, attaching himself to the wall as the area of the ceiling where he had previous attached himself crumbled, raining debris.</p><p>Dr. Strange stepped out of a glowing portal a few feet from where Spiderman clung to the wall. Parker tossed the scepter to Strange.</p><p>"I thought you said if we took that away from him, he'd be normal!" Parker said to Strange.</p><p>"I'm quite sure I didn't use the term 'normal.' It will take some time for its effects to wear off." Strange replied.  Loki glared savagely at the Master of the Mystic Arts.</p><p>"You....wizard. I should have known. You've enchanted her, turned her against me."</p><p>"I think that was your own special brand of charm.  I've found that when you tell a woman you don't need her, she tends to disappear without the use of magic." Strange said.</p><p>With a growl Loki leapt towards Strange only to find his momentum come suddenly to a halt as he felt a large hand close around his leg. Dangling in the air upside down, in the grasp of Banner's uninjured arm, Loki looked at the humongous green scientist in terror.</p><p>"Surprise." Banner said.</p><p>"Unhand me you dull creature!" Loki exclaimed.</p><p>"Do I really have to do this again?" Banner said.</p><p>"No!  Wait!  Perhaps we can--"</p><p>Before Loki could finish, Banner flung Loki onto the ground like a rag doll before lifting him and repeating the procedure once again. Strange and Parker stood together, Parker having removed himself from the wall, watching in awe and wincing.</p><p>"I think our part in this little drama has played out."  Strange said as he opened a portal back to the Sanctum.  "After you." he said to Parker, gesturing for him to enter before him.  Strange following Parker through the portal closed it behind him. </p><p>"Alright! That's enough!" Sigyn's voice called out. She stood on the walkway above where the bar had previously been, Barton at her side, his bow at the ready. Banner tossed Loki to the floor where he lay in a depression not quite as deep as during his previous experience. Banner stepped back as Sigyn descended the stairs, Barton following, crossing the floor to look down at Loki who stared blankly at the ceiling. Kneeling beside him, she reached over, taking his hand in hers, putting her other to his cheek.</p><p>"Loki..."</p><p>Loki slowly turned his head towards the sound of her voice, his eyes still wide.</p><p>"Sigyn?"</p><p>"Let me help you...unless of course you don't need me."</p><p>"Please..." Loki managed to say. Sigyn assisted Loki, easing him into a sitting position, then with an arm around him, helped him rise unsteadily to his feet. Loki, still in a daze looked towards the remains of the bar. "I need a drink." Barton, stepping up, handed Loki a flask. Raising it a bit shakily to his lips, Loki took a drink before handing it back to Barton. "Thank you."</p><p>Barton handed the flask over to Sigyn, taking hold of one of Loki's wrists, placing shackles on it, then shackling the other. Loki looked down at his shackled wrists, his brain still not firing on all cylinders after his pummeling, then looked back to Barton questioningly.</p><p>"Better safe than sorry.  Gonna take some time for all that garbage in your brain to work itself out." Barton explained.</p><p>"I think I can handle him from here. I'm taking him home now. Thank you, all of you." said Sigyn.</p><p>"Anytime." Banner said. Loki looked to Banner with fearful eyes.</p><p>"I'll get out to the island in the next few days with a few other guys. We'll get it all cleaned up...decide where to go from there." Barton said.</p><p>"I appreciate it. I'll be in touch." Sigyn said. Producing a transport cylinder and taking Loki's arm, both disappeared in it's pink-violet light.</p><p>Loki lay in the bunk of his cell in the dungeon of Heven staring glumly at the ceiling. A stack of books rested on the table next to the bunk. He turned his head as he noticed movement outside his cell. Sigyn stood looking in at him.</p><p>"Are you ready for me to bust you out of here?"</p><p>"Considering recent events, it may be in everyone's best interest for me to remain where I am." Loki answered. Sigyn deactivated the force field.</p><p>"It wouldn't be in mine." Sigyn replied.</p><p>"On the contrary, I believe it would be in yours most of all." Loki answered. Sigyn entered the cell and walked across it to the bunk and sat on the edge facing away from Loki.</p><p>"Did you mean what you said? Do you really feel that way?" Sigyn said. Loki sat up looking over to her.</p><p>"Which part?  Do I feel what way?" Loki asked.</p><p>"That you live in my shadow, that you're merely an appendage."</p><p>"In a way, perhaps...believe me when I say I would far rather be appended to you than to rule an empire alone. Did you mean what you said, on the island?"</p><p>"What did I-" Sigyn began to inquire turning to look at Loki before recalling their conversation. "Oh...yes...maybe, I don't know." Sigyn answered. "What I do know is the two that we now have are waiting for you." As Sigyn began to rise Loki reached out, taking her hand.</p><p>"Patience is a virtue. I think they can wait a little longer." Sigyn sat back down, looking to Loki questioningly.</p><p>"I thought you'd be chomping at the bit to get out of here."</p><p>"I'm feeling up to a little mischief. All the time I've spent in dungeons...there is one thing I've never yet done in them..."</p><p>"What would that--" Sigyn began to ask puzzled as she looked to Loki and the mischievous grin on his face.  "Oh!" she said as understanding dawned on her. Loki's lips met hers, putting an end to any further discussion.


</p><p>Loki sat on the chaise in the great room, Frigga sleeping in his arms. He looked down at her tranquil face and caressed her cheek. Sigyn, wearing a long silk robe,entered the great room from the door to the bedchambers and approached him.</p><p>"I'll take her." Sigyn said. Loki lifted the dozing infant, kissing her softly on the forehead before transferring her into Sigyn's arms. Sigyn walked back through the door of the bedchambers. Loki rose from the chaise, walking to the window and looking out into the darkness before then approaching the table holding the record player and standing before it.</p><p>Sigyn soon joined him, putting a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>"They're both out like a light. I think I'm going to join them. Are you coming?" Sigyn said.</p><p>"I have something to return to you...if you want them." Loki said holding out his hand and opening it, revealing two rings.</p><p>"Of course I do." Sigyn answered. Loki slipped her coronation ring back onto her right hand, before doing the same with Frigga's wedding ring onto her left. Taking her left hand, Loki raised it to his lips, kissing her finger and the ring now back in its place. Turning, holding her left hand in his, he moved the needle onto the record, music filling the room as he took Sigyn in his arms, she wrapping hers around him. ( watch?v=vDEambbz2Yk)</p><p>When I need you<br/>
I Just close my eyes and I'm with you<br/>
And all that I so want to give you<br/>
Its only a heart beat away</p><p>When I need love<br/>
I hold out my hands and I touch love<br/>
I never knew there was so much love<br/>
Keeping me warm night and day</p><p>"I'm glad I brought this one here. I used to listen to it all the time. I'm surprised I didn't wear a hole in it." she said.</p><p>Miles and miles of empty space in<br/>
Between us<br/>
A telephone can't take the place of your<br/>
Smile</p><p>But you know I won't be traveling<br/>
Forever<br/>
Its cold out but hold out and do like I do...</p><p>"Would you have really left me, taken the children?" Loki asked.</p><p>"If it had really been you...I mean if it wasn't the stone...yes."</p><p>"Good." Loki replied.</p><p>"Is it over? Can we go back to our lives?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"Yes, my love, it's all over now." Loki answered.</p><p>Loki walked down the sidewalk after leaving the same bar he and his past self had once visited, albeit in another timeline. Reaching the record store a few storefronts down from it, he turned and entered. The bell on the door of the shop rang as it opened, the proprietor upon hearing it, looked up from behind the counter to greet the customer who had just entered. Loki, a notebook in his hand, walked towards him at the front of the shop, past the displays and counters containing long boxes filled with record albums.</p><p>"Can I help you?" The man behind the counter asked.</p><p>"I very much hope so." Loki said as he sat the notebook on the counter.</p><p>Sigyn looked out over the ocean from the sailboat, the island only a tiny dot, barely perceptible in the distance. On the deck of the boat sat a long chest.</p><p>"I think we're far enough out." Sigyn called out to Loki who turned from the back of the boat and made his way to join her. Loki taking one end of the chest, Sigyn the other, hefted it up and carried it to the side of the boat. Inside the chest rested the Aether and scepter containing the mind stone, both now encased in concrete. "Are you ready?"</p><p>"Let's be done with it." Loki answered. Both he and Sigyn pushed the chest over the side of the boat, both watching it sink out of sight into the depths of the ocean.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
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    <p>Loki stood in the same large room in Kamar-Taj that he had slipped into unnoticed to witness Dr. Strange's arrival after returning The Ancient One. As he sipped a cup of tea that had been handed to him upon his arrival, a few masters and initiates filed through as he waited for those he came to meet, greeting him politely and simply as they strolled from one room to the next passing him by. Loki decided to peruse what little decor and other objects of interest there were throughout the room.</p><p>A man entered the room dressed in the typical Asian inspired clothing of those inhabiting Kamar-Taj, Loki turning as he sensed someone's presence. The man was quite handsome with chiseled features that struck Loki as somehow familiar.</p><p>"Mariel will be with you shortly. She's saying her farewells." the man informed Loki in a familiar voice. Loki stared in awe at the man, almost dropping the teacup in his hand.</p><p>"Steinn?!" Loki said in disbelief. Steinn smiled, his eyes bright.</p><p>"The one and only." Steinn replied. Loki found a nearby low table to place the tea cup and approached Steinn as he moved to meet Loki halfway.</p><p>"I don't believe it." Loki breathed, still astonished at Steinn's transformation. He could tell Steinn's recovered physical features were no mere illusion such as either man was capable of producing. Steinn could have used his magic to conceal his disfigurement previously, but Loki knew the energy it would have taken to consistently keep it up would have been draining. He knew well from his own experience impersonating his adopted father Odin for an extended period of time.</p><p>"Loki, my old friend!" Steinn said as he opened his arms wide, taking Loki into them, Loki returning the embrace before pulling back and examining his friend from a nearer perspective.</p><p>"It's astonishing! How is it possible? Even the healers of Asgard could do nothing by the time you returned." Loki said almost breathlessly.</p><p>"I've come to learn that almost anything is possible, if one is willing to put their mind to it and dedicate themselves." Steinn answered. "Of course already having a background in Asgardian magic, it was not quite as difficult for myself to catch on and progress more quickly. I have your mother to thank for that."</p><p>"My mother is to be thanked for many things." Loki replied, recalling all the assistance his mother had offered him not only in life but perhaps in even more important ways after her passing. Steinn's smile faded as he bowed his head.</p><p>"It is not just your mother that deserves my gratitude. You as well. After what I did...what I tried to do...you would have had every reason to put me to the ax.  At the very least, you would have had reason to toss the pathetic creature I was into the dungeons to live out the remainder of my days."</p><p>"As one who once had such a sentence hanging over his head, I'm not one to take placing it over another's lightly. It was my actions long ago that directly led to your own."</p><p>"Yes, but to have threatened the life of your Queen, the mother of your children, that I even considered leaving such innocents orphaned. Neither before or after what happened had I ever harmed another living soul outside of battle, nor had I ever considered it. I don't know what came over me. It was as if seeing you again, hearing your voice, awakened something in me.  I was drowning in darkness."</p><p>"I myself had a similar experience, for the second time, somewhat recently."</p><p>"Yes, so I heard. I'm pleased to see that you have once again emerged victorious having routed those demons" Steinn said. Loki decided that it was a good time to change the subject. The memories of his second experience with the mind stone, how close he had come to losing it all, how he had once again lost himself, something he had for some time previously, especially after Sigyn had come back into his life, not thought possible chilled him. He doubted were it not for the Mind Stone coming once again into his possession that it would have been. But then, it was his own foolishness, albeit for a good cause, that had brought about that circumstance. It reminded him of an old Midgardian saying he had heard before and that Sigyn had employed in the past, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." He knew well that in the future he must be ever and even more vigilant when choosing what stones he chose to make his path.</p><p>"So you say that Mariel is still occupied with saying her goodbyes. I suppose seeing as you're here you've completed yours." Loki stated.</p><p>"No. I won't be returning to my home on Vanaheim. There's nothing there for me. The only goodbyes I will be saying this day is to Mariel and yourself. I've decided to stay on here. There is so much more to learn and I find myself an eager student once again. Who knows? Perhaps someday I will run this place." Steinn said with a smile.</p><p>""Maybe you will at that." Loki said. Once again the smile slipped from Steinn's face as he seemed to be recalling something. He looked down once again.</p><p>"There is something else I must tell you. I gave my word to Mariel. She felt it was important you know. She is most likely right. No...she is right." Steinn reached out, taking Loki's right hand and gripping it between both of his own. "We had already known each other for some time as I was a student of your mother, but when we began to spend more time together as we grew older, in those uneasy and unsettled days of early manhood where we all struggle to find our place in the universe...I had known who I was for some time, long even before most others discover the truth of themselves. I led you down a path you were not certain was your own for my own selfish reasons. I know it caused you much confusion and turmoil in addition to that you were already experiencing due to the uncertainty of your life, what was your place, your role, your sense of existing in your brother's shadow. Things were not as easy for you as many believed life to have been for a Prince of Asgard. I only served to unnecessarily complicate it further. It is likely that at least partially led you to the choice you made. You saw a chance to escape from under the weight of it. One thing is for certain however...though my motivations may not have been, my feelings were always true." Steinn extolled. Both men stood silent for a moment, Loki processing Stein's unexpected words.  Loki placed his left hand over that of Steinn's.</p><p>"Never more than recently has it been made clear to me that the past is best left there. Let us begin again from this day."</p><p>"Agreed." Stein replied.</p><p>"The day will come when you will find one whose path converges with yours where ours diverge. Whomever that may be, for them that day will be a fortunate one."</p><p>"Now that I no longer have need to hide myself away, perhaps that day will come sooner." Steinn said as both men released their grip on each other's hands.</p><p>Mariel entered through the same doorway as Steinn had previously, the same bag in her hand that Loki had insisted on carrying for her the day she had left Heven. She looked to Loki for a moment. Loki looked to her more than a bit nervously, though he did his best to veil it. He had not seen nor spoken with her since that day many months ago. He knew a trust had been broken and such damage necessitated time to mend. He second guessed his decision to be the one to come to Midgard and Kamar-Taj to retrieve her. He had believed Steinn would be accompanying them but with this new development perhaps it would have been better for Sigyn to have done so. His unease was somewhat relieved as Mariel's face broke into a warm smile as she approached the two men.</p><p>"My King...Loki...it is good to see you. I was concerned for you during the time of your struggle. I was relieved to learn you had come through it."</p><p>"Thank you. I have not yet had the chance to apologize to you for my behavior."</p><p>"An apology is unnecessary."</p><p>"Are you well?" Loki asked her.</p><p>"Yes, very much so. I am ready to return to the service of my Queen, and yours as well free from the impediments that once weighed upon me."</p><p>"I am glad to hear it. I know Sigyn will be even more pleased. Sariah has done the job admirably and is to be commended, but she is not you. Your absence has been much felt in the palace. Are you ready?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Yes. If it pleases you to do so, return me home." Mariel said.</p><p>"It pleases me very much." Loki said, offering his arm. Mariel took hold of it. Loki looked back to Steinn. "Until we meet again, my friend."</p><p>"Until then." Steinn said before Loki and Mariel disappeared within the pink-violet light of the cylinder Loki produced in his hand.</p><p>Many months had passed, closing in on a year, since Hela's return and vanquishment, Leiffrid's imprisonment in Hel and his subsequent retrieval by Loki's past self and Loki's time in the branch timeline he had created to accomplish it (Loki sometimes found himself wondering what had become of his other self and his Sigyn in their branch timeline but tried not to dwell on it.) All had been smooth sailing since then, at least for the most part. Of course there were the minor hiccups and disagreements of life to deal with. He had inadvertently started no more fires, big or small...whether that was by his intention or mere luck he wasn't yet sure, and thus had had no need to put any out.</p><p>Loki had accepted more roles handed over to him by Sigyn, he happily taking them on, especially seeing as doing so had left her less harried. She had always put on a happy face, an air of control, but beneath the surface he knew she had been struggling to cope with the weight of it all, especially after the birth of both children, she feeling her loyalties and energies divided. He recalled how in his vision on Tartarus Stark had warned him that would happen and he had been on the mark. Loki wondered how his own mother had managed it, though her position as Queen of Asgard had been quite different than Sigyn's.</p><p>Loki's biggest struggle as of late had been Jotunheim, from where he had just returned after his annual visit. He was still its king, yet he had not actively ruled in some time, though all major decisions were approved by him. Otherwise, the realm had been left under the purview of Skrymir, who had proved himself more than capable. Yet Loki struggled to balance the mandates he wished to enact to make life there better, more fair and equal to everyone, with respecting their unique culture. How strange it was, he thought, that had he been born of a normal size for a Jotun, not having been conceived by the darkest of magic and subject to Loriel's manipulations, he would now likely be living adhering to that culture he often found irksome and troubling, his father, his biological father, Laufey likely still seated on its throne.</p><p>Loki entered the royal chambers, the sentinel opening the door for him as usual. He saw no sign of Sigyn. Frigga, much grown now, her head covered with a mop of thick, golden waves, her eyes the same deep blue as her mother's, ceased to play with the toys scattered in the bottom of the play pen like enclosure in which she sat, looking over at Loki and pulling herself up to stand, gripping its edge. Leiffrid, appearing much the same as nearly a year ago, his aging now beginning to noticeably slow, though his cognitive functions were advancing at a rate that unsettled even Loki, sat on the chaise with a book in his hand, just starting to turn a page.</p><p>"Father!" Leiffrid said happily, setting the book down beside him and rising, running towards Loki as Loki knelt down to open his arms to his son.</p><p>"Pabba!" Frigga joined in excitedly in a toddler's squeal of her unique version of the old informal term for father that was often used by young Asgardian children. Loki watched as he wrapped an arm around Leiffrid as Frigga struggled to hoist herself up by her arms and hook a leg over the edge of the enclosure, finally managing it, climbing over and in an unsteady, toddling run came towards him before sprawling on the ground as she fell. Picking herself back up again, she continued her trek in his direction.</p><p>Loki rose, putting a hand to Leiffrid's shoulder before meeting Frigga halfway, picking her up and swinging her around before placing her securely in his arm as Sigyn, a bag slung over both shoulders, appeared entering from the doorway to the bedchambers.</p><p>"I've captured an escapee." Loki said. Sigyn looked to Loki, Frigga held in one arm. Sigyn sighed in dismay.</p><p>"Ugh. I'd hoped it would take her at least a little longer before she figure out how to do that."</p><p>"Are you ready?" Loki asked.</p><p>"Give me a couple more minutes. I can't find-" Sigyn began. "Oh! I know where it is. I must be losing my mind." Sigyn said, turning and disappearing once again through the doorway. Loki had noticed that she'd seemed somewhat absent minded lately. Sigyn reappeared in the great room from the doorway. "Alright. Let's go. Leiffrid..." Sigyn called, the boy happily making his way to her and taking her outstretched hand.</p><p>Stepping out of the Ladder's golden light, Sigyn with both bags slung over her shoulders and holding Leiffrid's hand and Loki, Frigga held in one arm, found themselves for the first time in many months on the island. Before them stood a newly built house. The bottom floor appeared similar to what had existed before but now it also sported a second floor along with additional rooms extending off the back. The fresh white paint almost seemed to glow in the sunlight. A playground had been installed in the yard of the house. Leiffrid's eyes lit up as they fell on it first.</p><p>"I want to go play!" Leiffrid said, tugging on his mother's arm.</p><p>"Yes...go..." Sigyn said, her eyes glued to the structure in awe as Leiffrid ran off towards the playground. Barton standing outside the house made his way towards her, Loki and the toddler Frigga.</p><p>"So...what do you think?" Barton asked, grinning as he noticed the astonished expression on Sigyn's face. He turned to stand beside her, Loki on her other side, all three now looking towards the house.</p><p>"It's so big!" Sigyn exclaimed. Barton and Loki glanced at each other, struggling to hold back their laughter as they both knew they were thinking the same thing.</p><p>"I'm pleased you're still impressed after so many years..." Loki joked. A snicker escaped Barton. Sigyn turned her head to look at Loki and the grin on his face before rolling her eyes.</p><p>"The house, you dolt!" Sigyn said, putting a hand to Loki's arm and slightly, playfully shoving him.</p><p>"Check out the inside." Barton said before leading them towards the house. Sigyn turned her head towards Leiffrid who was swinging merrily on the swingset section of the playground.</p><p>"Leiffie! Come on! We're going to see inside!" Sigyn called. Leiffrid jumped from the swing, running to her and taking her hand. "The gold...it was enough to cover it, with some left over for you and the others I hope?" Sigyn asked Barton.</p><p>"Yeah...yeah...more than enough. Think I'm gonna buy a new truck. One back home's being held together with duct tape and prayers. Should have replaced it a long time ago, not like we didn't have the money before, but had it so long, just attached I guess. You must be sitting on a gold mine up there."</p><p>"No actually. We make it. It's why it's worth so much more here. It'd be better if you kept that just between us. I'm sure you can understand why." Sigyn said. Barton looked over to her as they walked in disbelief.</p><p>"Yeah...sure. Your secret's safe with me."</p><p>As they neared the house, Barton walked a few steps ahead, opening the door. Stepping inside, Sigyn looked in wonder at the front room, how similar it was to the original, as she remembered it when the original house had also been new. The only major difference was a stairway off to the side right before where the hallway led back to what in the original house had been her room. </p><p>"Why don't you leave those here."  Barton said, referring to the bags Sigyn carried.  She lowered them to the floor before she, Leiffrid, and Loki followed Barton.  They filed down the hallway, Leiffrid now following behind Sigyn.  Barton stepped back as they reached the door that mirrored the one to her old bedroom."Go ahead. Open it." Sigyn opened the door and stepped inside, Leiffrid, Loki carrying Frigga, and Barton behind her. Aside from a bed, dresser and a new stereo system sitting on it, the room was stacked with crates of record albums.</p><p>"How...?" Sigyn asked. She knew the part of her collection that she had not transported back to Heven had been destroyed.</p><p>"I have my ways." Loki said with a smile, Frigga still held perched in one arm. It had taken months, but the proprietor of the shop had finally tracked down through various contacts the titles he didn't himself possess. On Midgard Loki knew, money talks, but gold speaks louder. Turning to Loki, Sigyn threw her arms around him, he putting his free arm around her.</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>Barton pushed Frigga in the baby swing as Leiffrid climbed around the jungle gym portion of the playground. Loki and Sigyn turned from them, walking hand in hand across the field towards the far side of the island.</p><p>"I have another surprise for you." Loki said. Sigyn looked over at him.</p><p>"You've already outdone yourself."</p><p>"You know me." Loki said with a slight grin.</p><p>"Yes, I do." Sigyn smiled. "I have a surprise for you as well." Loki looked over to her expectantly. "At the time, if you'd told me that everything would work out for the best I probably would have gutted you...but I suppose it has since we're going to need the extra room." Loki stopped walking, Sigyn following suit.</p><p>"I had thought...we weren't....you said....you'd decided..." Loki said, flustered, Sigyn obviously succeeding in surprising him. Sigyn smiled at his stammering response.</p><p>"I can undecide as well as I can decide. I'm the Queen. I can do what I please." Sigyn told him. Loki took her in his arms, kissing her.</p><p>"We're going to be outnumbered." Loki said smiling, "That's not a wise strategic position."</p><p>"I wasn't aware we were at war." Sigyn said, laughing. Loki froze, staring into Sigyn's eyes. Something struck him as familiar about their current conversation, his brain attempting to process the reason for the sensation of deja vu that overtook him.</p><p>"Loki? What is it?" Sigyn asked, the smile on her face transforming to an expression of worry. Loki's brain finally put the pieces together for him...his previous vision, the one his mother had given him, their life on Asgard that was not to be. Loki released her from his arms, taking hold of her hand.</p><p>"Come..." Loki said, leading her towards the far side of the island.</p><p>Loki and Sigyn stood a few yards from the cliffs, Loki continuing to hold Sigyn's hand in his own.</p><p>"Close your eyes." Loki said to Sigyn, she doing as he had told her. She could hear the sound of the ocean lapping the shore below then the sound suddenly stopped.  The air no longer smelled salty. "You may open them now." Loki said. Sigyn opened her eyes to find herself no longer on the island. The two stood surrounded by forest.</p><p>"Where are we?" Sigyn asked.</p><p>"You once said you wished you could have seen it once more." Loki reminded her. Sigyn's hand falling from Loki's, she looked around her in wonder.</p><p>"Asgard..."</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki and Sigyn made their way hand in hand back to the house on the island after their sojourn to the Asgard of the past. Loki, glancing over at Sigyn, noticed a small bit of twig caught in her hair. Reaching over, he plucked it from her golden locks, dropping it to the ground.</p><p>"Well...that's something we never did there before." Sigyn said with a grin.</p><p>"We were children." Loki answered, also grinning. Sigyn began to giggle, putting a hand over her mouth.</p><p>"Do you think Heimdall...?" Loki turned his head to look to where they were going once again with an even wider grin.</p><p>"I hope he did. If his ears were half as well tuned as his eyes he most likely heard as well." Loki said. Sigyn swatted him playfully with her free hand as she laughed.</p><p>"You're terrible."</p><p>"Would you have me any other way?" Loki asked.</p><p>"I'm glad I got to see all of it one last time." Sigyn said.</p><p>"It need not be the last..." Loki said. Sigyn looked over to him as they continued to walk.</p><p>"I think it better if it was. The past is the past for a reason. It has shaped us into who we are today but we shouldn't live in it, not to mention the dangers of it."</p><p>"My mother once said something very similar." Loki said, recalling his conversation with his mother in the branch timeline he had created.</p><p>"I thought you had taken it back to Banner to be destroyed."</p><p>"Banner may be a genius by Midgardian standards but he is as easily fooled as most mortals, perhaps even more easily than my brother, which is saying something." Loki said.</p><p>"Well he certainly caught you by surprise." Sigyn said with a smirk. Loki's expression changed, his face almost seemed to go pale as he recalled the instance of which Sigyn spoke.</p><p>"I was momentarily distracted...let us speak no more of it." said Loki as the two crossed the field towards the new house as it came into view.</p><p>Loki sat in a chair before the stone lined fire pit Barton had installed in the yard to the side of the house, a fire blazing within it in the darkness. Frigga lay in his arms, dozing peacefully once again. An empty chair sat next to Loki where Sigyn had been sitting before taking Leiffrid inside to put him to bed for the night. Barton sat in a chair on the opposite side of the fire. As Sigyn reappeared, walking towards them, Barton rose.</p><p>"Guess it's time for me to hit the trail." said Barton. Sigyn walked around the fire to him.</p><p>"Thank you for everything." Sigyn told him.</p><p>"Yes, thank you." Loki said from the other side of the fire.</p><p>"My pleasure." Barton looked across to Loki and the sleeping Frigga. "Enjoy that, it doesn't last long. I'll be seeing you." Barton turned, walking away in the darkness towards the Quinjet parked in the field. Sigyn walked back around the fire to stand next to Loki.</p><p>"I'll get her to bed. I think Leiffrid was out even before his head hit the pillow. They both wore themselves out today. I'm glad Clint thought of putting in a playground. I'm sure he was thinking of when his kids were their age." Sigyn leaned over, transferring Frigga from Loki's to her own arms, careful to avoid waking her. As she carried the toddler into the house, Loki stood looking into the fire in silence.</p><p>Holding out his hand, the modified transport cylinder appeared within it. He stared at it for a few moments, his mind revisiting all that had taken place from the moment Banner had put it into his hand. Though he was already aware, Banner had warned him again of the danger that day, a warning his mother had also echoed during his time on Asgard in the branch timeline. Loki moved closer to the fire, holding the modified cylinder over it before releasing it to fall into the flames. He watched as the fire began to do its destructive work. Sigyn appeared next to him and reached over, taking his hand.</p><p>"So you made your decision." she said.</p><p>"I had made the decision long before now. I first wanted to fulfill your wish. I was waiting for this day. There is nowhere….or no when I would rather be than here with you in this very moment."</p><p>"I agree." Sigyn said. Both stood silent for a moment staring into the fire. Sigyn began to quietly weep. Concerned, he turned to her, taking her in his arms.</p><p>"What is it?"</p><p>"I don't know...hormones probably...it's just...when I was putting the children to bed I was thinking...all the time I was here with my father, alone... if anyone had ever told me that I'd be with you here, the children, if they'd told me of this day...I never would have believed them. But even still there was a part of me...I used to look at the stars and think how you were out there somewhere, you'd come for me to take me home...and you did….you took me home."</p><p>Loki pulled the blankets up after climbing into bed, moving them aside on Sigyn's side for her. Sigyn had started a record playing, a very familiar one, on the turntable of the new stereo, the first one it had ever played. She stood at the window, unlatching and opening it, allowing the breeze from the ocean to enter. Turning from the window, she climbed into bed as well, Loki reaching over and turning off the lamp on the nightstand beside the bed. Loki wrapped his arms around Sigyn, kissing her forehead as she put an arm around him, as both closed their eyes.</p><p>"Sweet dreams." Sigyn told him.</p><p>"I have no need for those." Loki replied as the next song of the record began to play. ( watch?v=aBKEt3MhNMM)</p><p>Didn't know what time it was and the lights were low</p><p>I leaned back on my radio</p><p>Some cat was layin' down some rock and roll, "lotta soul" he said</p><p>Then the loud sound did seem to fade</p><p>Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase</p><p>That weren't no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive</p><p>There's a starman waiting in the sky</p><p>He'd like to come and meet us</p><p>But he thinks he'd blow our minds</p><p>There's a starman waiting in the sky</p><p>He's told us not to blow it</p><p>Cause he knows it's all worthwhile</p><p>He told me:</p><p>Let the children lose it</p><p>Let the children use it</p><p>Let all the children boogie</p><p>I had to phone someone so I picked on you</p><p>Hey, that's far out so you heard him too</p><p>Switch on the TV we may pick him up on channel two</p><p>Look out your window I can see his light</p><p>If we can sparkle he may land tonight</p><p>Don't tell your poppa or he'll get us locked up in fright</p><p>There's a starman waiting in the sky</p><p>He'd like to come and meet us</p><p>But he thinks he'd blow our minds</p><p>There's a starman waiting in the sky</p><p>He's told us not to blow it</p><p>Cause he knows it's all worthwhile</p><p>He told me:</p><p>Let the children lose it</p><p>Let the children use it</p><p>Let all the children boogie...</p><p>The End</p>
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